. ...^STIPAl .^-. 

BILIOUSNESS 
E.MACIATION 

^ DYSPEPSIA . 

\ DIARRHEA / 

A LANGUOR I L 

\\ ANEMIA // 

W PI LES // 

\\ PAIN // 

' \\ &.e. // 




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Book ___JL3 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



INTESTINAL ILLS 



CHRONIC CONSTIPATION AND 
AUTO-INTOXICATION 

DUE TO 

PROCTITIS AND COLITIS 



INTESTINAL 
ILLS 



CHRONIC CONSTIPATION 

INDIGESTION 
AUTOGENETIC POISONS 
DIARRHEA, PILES, ETC. 

ALSO 

AUTO-INFECTION, AUTO-INTOXICA- 
TION, ANEMIA, EMACIATION, ETC. 

DUE TO 

PROCTITIS AND COLITIS 



BY 



ALCINOUS B. JAMISON, M.D. 

NEW YORK 



c2$ 



-new l^orl^ 
Ube Vtnfcf;erl)oct:er press 

igoi 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Cop-.ES Recpved 

MAR. 21 1901 

Copyright entry 

CLASS CLXXc N«. 

COPY B. 



K^^_ 



k,o 



<il 



COP\-KIGHT, 1901 
BY 

ALCINOUS B. JAMISON, M. D. 



TO 

THE UNFORTUNATE SUFFERER 

FROM ILLS DESCRIBED IN THIS VOLUME 

AND TO THOSE WHOM I HAVE HAD 

THE PLEASURE OF CURING 

THIS BOOK 

IS RESPECTFULLY 

DEDICATED 



BEAUTY'S FALL. 

It was an image good to see, 
With spirits high and full of glee, 

And robust health endowed ; 
Its face was loveliness untold, 
Its lines were cast in beauty's mold ; 

At its own shrine it bowed. 

With perfect form in each respect, 
It proudly stood with head erect 

And skin surpassing fair ; 
Surveyed itself from foot to head, 
And then complacently it said : 

" Naught can with me compare." 

When lo the face began to pale, 
The body looked too thin and frail. 

The cheek had lost its glow ; 
The tongue a tale of woe did tell, 
With nerves impaired its spirits fell ; 

The fire of life burned low. 

In the intestinal canal 

Waste matter lay, and sad to tell, 

Was left from day to day ; 
And while it was neglected there 
It undermined that structure fair. 

And caused it to decay. 

The doctor's words I would recall 
Who said : ' ' Neglect precedes a fall,' 

And verily 't is true ; 
For ye who disregard your health. 
And value not that precious wealth, 

Will surely live to rue. 



vu 



PREFACE. 

THE following chapters were contribu- 
tions to Health — a monthly maga- 
zine published in New York City. Certain 
peculiarities of form and considerable 
repetition of statement — both of which 
the reader cannot fail to notice — are ow- 
ing to the fact that about two-thirds of 
the chapters were written under the cap- 
tion " Auto-genetic Poisons in the Intes- 
tinal Canal and their AutOrinfection." 
In revising these contributions for book 
form I have given to each chapter a cap- 
tion of its leading thought ; but I am 
convinced that repetition of some of the 
matters treated, especially if the repeti- 
tion be in a somewhat different connec- 
tion, is not such a very bad thing. I 
have used my blue pencil sparingly, and 
as a consequence the consecutive reader 
will find that constipation, diarrhea, bil- 
iousness, indigestion, auto-infection and 



Preface 

proctitis are treated in nearly all the 
chapters — but with varying applications. 
Therefore anyone suffering from one of 
these complaints would better read the 
whole book instead of only the chapter 
with the corresponding title. 

These pages were written for intelli- 
gent laymen by a specialist, during a busy, 
assiduous practice. I take such radical 
ground, however, going to the very root 
of the matter, that the general practi- 
tioner will do well to give my thesis his 
careful consideration ; he should at least 
glance at the following Introduction for 
the gist of my claim. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

Man, Composed almost wholly of Water, 
IS Constipated. Why ? . . . . i 

CHAPTER II. 
The Physics of Digestion and Egestion . 12 

CHAPTER III. 

The Interdependence of Anus, Rectum, 
Sigmoid Flexure and Colon . . . 24 

CHAPTER IV. 
Indigestion, Intestinal Gas and Other 
Matters 29 

CHAPTER V. 
Key to Auto-Infection . . . -3^ 

CHAPTER VI. 

How Auto-Infection Affects the Gastric 
Digestion, and Vice Versa . . .46 

CHAPTER VII. 
How Auto-Infection Affects Intestinal 
Digestion, and Vice Versa . . .56 



Contents 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Cause of Constipation and how we 

IGNORANTLY TrEAT IT . . . -64 

CHAPTER IX. 
Cures for Constipation: "Fearfully and 
Wonderfully Made " . . . .71 

CHAPTER X. 
Biliousness and Bilious Attacks . . 78 

CHAPTER XI. 
King Liver and Bile-Bouncers . . • ^3 

CHAPTER XII. 
Semi-Constipation and its Dangers . . 89 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Etiology of the most Common Form 
OF Diarrhea, i.e., Excessfye Intestinal 
Peristalsis 98 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Ballooning of the Rectum .... 107 

CHAPTER XV. 
Ballooning of the Rectum — co?itinued . 117 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Usual Diagnosis and Treatment of 
Bowel Troubles Wrong . . . . 126 

xii 



Contents 

CHAPTER XVII. 

COSTIVENESS 132 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Inflammation 137 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Proctitis and Piles 148 

CHAPTER XX. 

Pruritus or Itching of the Anus . . 156 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Abscess and Fistula . . . . . 164 

CHAPTER XXII. 
The Origin and Use of the Enema . .173 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

How OFTEN SHOULD AN EnEMA BE TaKEN ? . l8o 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
Man's Best Friend 190 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Physiological Irrigation .... 191 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Proper Treatment for Diseases of Anus 
AND Rectum Essential .... 202 
xiii 



Contents 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
The Body's Book-keeping .... 215 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Selection and Preparation of Food . . 220 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
Diet for Indigestion 227 

CHAPTER XXX. 
Diet for Constipation and Obstipation . 231 

CHAPTER XXXI. 
CosTivENESS, Diet, etc. .... 235 

CHAPTER XXXII. 
Diet for Diarrhea 237 

A Final Word 240 



?tiy 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE keynote of this book Is Proctitis, 
inflammation of the anal and rectal 
canals. Hardly a civilized man escapes 
proctitis from the day of the diaper 
to that of death. The diaper is in 
truth chiefly responsible for proctitis, 
and proctitis is in turn chiefly respon- 
sible for chronic constipation, chronic 
diarrhea, auto-infection ; and thence for 
mal - assimilation, mal - nutrition, anemia ; 
and for a thousand and one reflex func- 
tional derangements of the system as 
well. The inflamed surface of the intes- 
tinal canal (proctitis) inhibits the passage 
of feces. Absorbent glands begin to act 
on the retained sewage, and the whole 
system becomes more or less infected 
with poisonous bacteria. Various organs 
(especially the feeblest) endeavor to per- 
form vicarious defecation, and the patient, 
the friends, and even the physician are 



Introduction 

deceived by such vicarious performance 
into thinking and treating it as a local ail- 
ment. I cannot, accordingly, insist too 
emphatically that proctitis, the exciting 
cause, must be treated primarily if we 
would cure chronic constipation. Millions 
of human beings are sent to untimely 
graves by these ailments. Indeed, the 
body of nearly every human being is a 
pest-house of absorbed poison instead of 
being the worthy temple of a wondrous 
soul. All due to Proctitis ! 



INTESTINAL ILLS 



CHAPTER I. 

MAN, COMPOSED ALMOST WHOLLY OF WATER, 
IS CONSTIPATED. WHY? 

NATURALLY the mind of man was 
first educated to observe external 
objects and forces in their effects upon 
himself, and the external still continues to 
engross his attention as if he were a child 
in a kindergarten. Fascinated by the 
Without, he ignores the Within. But, 
marvel of marvels. Disease (which when 
looked at with discerning eyes is seen to 
be an angel in disguise) comes to enlighten 
him concerning the world within. Dis- 
ease gradually acquaints him with the fact 
that there are within him organs and 

functions corresponding to the objects 
I — I 



Intestinal Ills 

and forces in the world without, — servitors 
in fact which must not be ignored under 
penalty of transforming them into foes to 
his well-being. Disease makes him aware 
that by ignoring the claims of his inner 
relations he has been converting his very 
food, juices and gases into insidious and 
formidable poisons, which perforce he ab- 
sorbs into his blood and tissues and circu- 
lates throughout his entire system. Thus 
does the disguised angel admonish the ig- 
norant that the rights of the inner world 
must not be ignored — that one's duties 
thereto cannot be neglected without dis- 
astrous consequences. 

Thus does Pathology, which is really 
Physiology reversed, become the self-re- 
vealer par excellence. Through digestion 
and assimilation the physiological process 
takes up the food, juices and gases, to 
support and augment the life of man. 
The pathological process, on the contrary, 
because the conditions for nutrition are 
ignored, reverses the upbuilding pro- 
cesses ; and the organs of life wither, 



Intestinal Hygiene 

waste and weaken, until life goes out like 
fire unfed. 

Man has been slowly learning to take 
sanitary measures in reference to every- 
thing that contributes to comfort in his 
surroundings, and hygienic measures in 
reference to everything conducive to sta- 
bility in his health. 

Through ages he has learned, by ex- 
perience and experiment, of the changes 
that inevitably occur in such perishable 
nutritive substances as water, milk, meats, 
vegetables, fruits, etc., if they be left un- 
cared for ; and he has been led thus to 
the inference of the law of decomposi- 
tion — or putrefactive and fermentative 
changes. Idle substances, like idle minds, 
have decomposition and the devil for 
companions. Substances confined in con- 
tainers open to the air — ponds, cesspools, 
etc. — are every-day object lessons to man 
of the fact that the chemical changes they 
undergo furnish the conditions for breed- 
ing bacterial poisons, and that these poi- 
sons are a dread menace to animal life. 



Intestinal Ills 

If the reader will observe the analogy 
between the decomposition of substances 
in vessels or pools, and the decomposition 
of food in the reservoir called the stom- 
ach ; and its further decomposition in a 
long canal (the small intestine), connect- 
ing the stomach with other receptacles 
called the colon and sigmoid flexure ; and 
then the decomposition of their contents ; 
he will readily comprehend the chemical 
putrefactive or fermentative changes or 
bacterial action that take place in the 
organism, if for any reason the contents 
be confined. 

Of the four chief elements that enter 
into the composition of living bodies 
three are gaseous, or convertible into 
gas. In the physical man water con- 
stitutes three-fourths of the weight of the 
body. This being so we realize why, 
notwithstanding our sense of solidity and 
weight, chemical changes occur quite as 
readily in our organism as in the sub- 
stances we see about us. There are no 
waterproof walls in the body of man to 

4 



Intestinal Hygiene 

impede the percolation of liquids freighted 
with promiscuous Passengers from the 
alimentary canal ; Passengers designed to 
nourish the organs for which they have 
an affinity. But there are those that have 
no organic affinity, and these are tramps, 
vagabonds, and even murderers, disturb- 
ing and destroying the normal functions 
of the system. Through extravasation, 
that is, through fluid infiltration of tissues, 
these Passengers come to be one with 
us, and we make them part of our tissue ; 
but some of the Passengers are the de- 
molishers of the living temple. 

Water is universally present in all the 
tissues of the body, and it is indispensable 
for introducing new substances into the 
system and for eliminating the worn-out 
tissues and foreign substances. It is in- 
deed important to emphasize the fact that 
properly to eliminate the foreign and 
waste products from the system requires, 
in a healthy person, at least hve pints of 
water during twenty-four hours. 

The amount of gastric juice secreted in 

5 



Intestinal Ills 

twenty-four hours is from six to fourteen 
pints ; of pancreatic juice, one pint ; of 
bile there are two to three pints, and of 
saliva one to three pints. It is estimated 
that the juices secreted during digestion 
in a man weighing 140 pounds amount to 
twenty-three pounds in twenty-four hours. 
These fluids are poured back and forth 
in the process of transforming food into 
flesh and eliminating waste material. 

In the alimentary canal there are ves- 
sels for holding fluid, semi-fluid and moist 
masses of substance, in all of which de- 
composition occurs if the substances be 
retained beyond the normal length of 
time. These vessels or reservoirs are the 
stomach, duodenum, small intestines, co- 
lon, sigmoid flexure, and too often the 
rectum. Through the harmonious action 
of this intestinal retinue of servitors man 
is well equipped and qualified for health, 
and he in whom this harmonious subser- 
vience prevails is among the blessed and 
elect of mankind. But alas ! the great 
majority of human beings are sufferers 



Intestinal Hygiene 

from the inharmonious and insubordi- 
nate action of these servitors. How 
many a human being suffers from chronic 
constipation and indigestion, the exciting 
causes of which are insidious, and the 
consequences a protean enemy to his 
happiness! Medical writers on the sub- 
ject of chronic constipation have assigned 
numerous causes, and likewise prescribed 
multitudinous remedies to the patient ; 
but as a general rule this patient, after 
suffering various woes, if still surviving 
the many years of medication, rebels 
against taking further remedies and re- 
signs himself to the chronic enemy on the 
best terms he can make with diet. 

For this large class of chronic sufferers 
we have good news ; and for the class 
that have suffered five or ten years we 
have better news ; and for the class of 
infants and children that have started on 
the road of ill-health we have real glad 
tidings. To know that there is only one 
chief cause for chronic constipation and 
its train of disorders, and that that cause 

7 



Intestinal Ills 

overshadows all other causes combined, 
and is easily diagnosed and treated, is 
news long hoped and prayed for by a 
multitude of sufferers the world over. 

Twenty years as a specialist in diseases 
of the lower bowels have demonstrated 
to the writer that chronic inflammation, 
and often ulceration, of the rectum and 
sigmoid flexure, in ninety-nine cases out 
of a hundred, is the cause of chronic con- 
stipation and the long army of ills result- 
ing from it. And yet, as the reader is 
well aware, constipation has had many 
" causes," since the days of Hippocrates, 
especially the abnormal condition of the 
liver. 

The etiology, that is, the exciting cause, 
of the inflammation of the anus, rectum, 
colon, etc., may date from the time a 
diaper was placed on the new-born infant. 
Excoriations of the integument about the 
anus by the excretions of bowels and 
bladder indicate that the mucous mem- 
brane of anus and rectum demands lo- 
cal remedies, as well as the integument 



Intestinal Hygiene 

of the buttocks, and that it is not the 
liver which is at fault. The many appli- 
cations of the diaper during the period 
of its use, and the frequently delayed 
removal at night or during long rides 
in baby wagons, railway trains or car- 
riages, and during long social visits of the 
nurse ; constipating foods, lack of drink- 
ing water, constipating medicines, followed 
by all sorts of purgatives, etc., are among 
a few of the direct causes of diseases of 
the rectum. A child at the age of eigh- 
teen months with a healthy rectum is most 
rare. 

The ten thousand and one chances for 
contracting disease of the anus and rectum 
do not cease with the period of infancy. 
The child is left pretty much to shift for 
itself as to regularity of eating and the 
evacuation of the contents of its bowels, 
wherein disease has already obtained a 
foothold. All kinds of foodstuffs, at all 
hours, with seeds, stones, etc., are poked 
into its stomach, followed by constipating 
remedies to quiet inevitable troubles, or 



Intestinal Ills 

brisk purgatives given with the hope of 
expelling the arrested contents of the 
bowels. Is it any wonder that ninety- 
eight persons of adult age out of every 
hundred suffer more or less from chronic 
inflammation and ulceration of anus, rec- 
tum, sigmoid flexure, colon, or appendix ? 
Traumatic (externally produced) inju- 
ries to the mucous membrane of the 
rectum frequently cause inflammation, 
and hard pieces of bone, wood, seeds, 
imbedded in the feces, scratch, cut and 
bruise the tissues before and during the 
act of defecation. Cold boards, stones, 
earth and other substances used as seats 
may produce inflammation of the rectum. 
There are many and various causes which 
may be the means of exciting inflamma- 
tion of the anus and rectum later in life ; 
but it is the writer's opinion that the 
cause can be traced back to infancy or 
early childhood, and that accidents or 
imprudence in after years merely excite 
an already - existing chronic inflamma- 
tion. Piles, fissure, itching pockets, tabs, 

lO 



Intestinal Hygiene 

prolapse, abscesses, fistulae, etc., are only 
the outcome and symptoms of a chronic 
disease which has incubated for fifteen, 
twenty or more years. None of this list 
of troubles produces constipation. It is 
the inflammation located at the middle 
portion of the rectum and extending into 
the sigmoid flexure that causes constipa- 
tion ; that protean monster which de- 
ranges more lives with nervousness than 
any other pathological condition to which 
the flesh of man is heir ! 



II 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PHYSICS OF DIGESTION AND EGESTION. 

A TREE is simply an extension from 
its roots ; and, in an analogous man- 
ner, man's body may be said to be an 
extension from the alimentary canal. 
Does it not follow, consequently, that 
the digestive apparatus, from a physio- 
logical point of view, is the most import- 
ant organ of the human body ? It must 
be prime and paramount because all 
other organs depend upon it : it provides 
them with nourishment for preservation 
and improvement, and it punishes them — 
if they do not mind the laws of normal- 
ity — by withholding its gifts, or by 
presenting these gifts in the form of 
poisons that impoverish, hinder and de- 
generate the system of organs. Unclean- 
liness is surely one of the chief ways in 
which physiological thoughtlessness is 

12 



Digestion and Egestion 

exhibited, and due punishment will in- 
evitably follow disobedience. 

Foodstuffs are prepared for assimila- 
tion in the alimentary laboratory through 
the process of normal fermentation. Is 
it not essential, therefore, that the con- 
necting canals and receptacles be cleansed 
of the fermented debris that may remain 
unused and unexpelled, before more food 
be taken by the digestive apparatus ? 
The all - important question is: — How 
soon and how well have the residuary 
part of the food (for some part will always 
be undigested or unassimilated), and the 
waste resulting from worn-out tissues of 
the various organs, been eliminated from 
the system? Wisdom declares that it 
is not so much what we eat, but what 
and how well we eliminate, that decides 
the issues of health and disease. Do the 
egesta pass out in the form of normal 
feces ? Three times in twenty-four hours 
foodstuffs are taken, and as many times 
the bowels should be freed of accumulated 
excrement and gases. Does Nature have 
13 



Intestinal Ills 

her way, or do neglect and bad habits rule 
the assimilative and eliminative functions 
of the bowels ? 

The habit of storing feces for twenty- 
four hours ought to concur and keep pace 
with a habit of eating one meal in the 
same period. Household and laboratory 
receptacles in which fermentation has oc- 
curred are emptied and cleaned before 
fresh material is put into them. Is not 
the same precaution more essential with 
the receptacles for digestion and egestion ? 
They constitute our chief physiological 
economy ; they are precious household and 
laboratory utensils ; exceedingly precious, 
as we can purchase no other set when 
these are worn and wasted beyond repair. 
What marvelous possessions, and how 
reckless most of us are with them ! 
Neither love nor money will bring an- 
other ''body "-house to us when this de- 
cays ; when poisons or parasites infest it 
as the result of a pernicious diathesis, of 
debasing, destructive tendencies ; in short, 
of unmindfulness ! 

14 



Digestion and Egestion 

Too often criminal negligence or the 
lack of proper convenience has brought 
on the habit of using the intestinal canal 
as a storehouse for dried feces, and the 
glands and blood-vessels as reservoirs for 
the absorbed fluid poisons from the feces 
that have been stored and thus dried. This 
baneful habit Is general throughout civil- 
ized communities. It Is this habit that 
has made the words "constipation," ** In- 
digestion," "diarrhea," etc., familiar and 
household subjects of complaint. Medical 
writers agree that " constipation " Is the 
most common malady that afflicts man- 
kind ; but they are also unanimous In pre- 
posterously attributing the cause to the 
abnormal action of the liver and the sec- 
ondary symptoms of constipation. 

Chronic constipation Is the result of 
proctitis and colitis. Proctitis, the Inflam- 
mation of the rectal and anal canals, Is 
the most common disease that afflicts the 
human creature from Infancy to old age ; 
and colitis Is only the extension of proc- 
titis to the colon. 
15 



Intestinal Ills 

The scientific diagnosis of constipation 
predicates proctitis and sometimes colitis. 
It is declared that constipation is its pri- 
mary symptom ; and that diarrhea is one 
of its secondary symptoms, resulting from 
constipation. There is a legion of second- 
ary symptoms of proctitis, all of which 
medical empiricism considers and denom- 
inates causes. As constipation is such 
an every-day complaint of almost every- 
body one meets, it will not tax our im- 
agination unduly to conceive how it may 
be a frequent cause of diarrhea, which is 
only Nature's effort to get rid of its useless 
and excessive burden of retained feces and 
gases. Constipation, semi-constipation, 
and irregular action of the bowels, exces- 
sive fermentation, putrefaction, self-gen- 
erated or auto-infection, are the factors 
to be considered. It is to be noted that 
in many cases diarrhea is simply an in- 
creased peristalsis of the bowels, often 
due to local and diffused irritation and 
often to inflammation of the mucous mem- 
brane (not infrequently with ulceration) ; 

l6 



Digestion and Egestion 

all of these may be the outcome of fecal 
impaction. 

To make intelligible the physics of the 
digestive and egestive processes, we must 
understand the apparatus. One would 
naturally think that were the bends or 
curves of the large intestine undone, it 
would be found to be a long, straight, 
smooth canal or bore like a rubber tube. 
But such is not the case. The outer 
muscular longitudinal bands are much 
shorter than the musculo-areolo-mucous 
tube, an arrangement which brings about 
a transverse puckering of the gut and 
mucous membrane, thus forming valves, 
folds, sacs or pouches at short intervals 
along the canal. These transverse folds 
or valves inhibit the too hasty passage 
of the feces along the bowels by check- 
ing and retaining the egested product 
in the large recesses or pools between the 
folds ; they thus serve as so many dams 
in the passage of feces toward elimi- 
nation. This wise provision of Nature 
to moderate the steady motion of the 

17—2 



Intestinal Ills 

feces as they proceed toward the sigmoid 
flexure or receptacle, to wait there till 
there is a proper stimulus for expulsion, 
is wofully abused by man. He is quite 
willing to take foodstuffs three or four 
times a day, to fill the long row. of intes- 
tinal pools between the dams with feces 
and gases in all stages of decomposition, 
not dreaming of the danger from develop- 
ing bacteria and their absorption into the 
system. 

Really he is inclined to eat at all times, 
yet begrudges a few minutes spent in a 
hurried effort to perform the act of defe- 
cation once in twenty-four hours. Some 
of us even have our minds absorbed in 
reading while awaiting an '* automatic 
action " of the bowels. What a contrast 
between the gusto and time spent in tak- 
ing foodstuffs and the indifference and 
indolence regarding the action of the bow- 
els, unless indeed severe biliousness or 
diarrhea reminds us strongly of our sewer 
of waste products. 

An attack of acute or chronic diarrhea 

i8 



Digestion and Egestion 

IS the penalty some pay for long inatten- 
tion to the demands nature makes for 
intestinal cleanliness three times in twen- 
ty-four hours. Constipated people, semi- 
constipated people, Irregular people and 
twenty-four-hour people, are not healthy. 
They are constantly being poisoned by 
the abnormal products of indigestion and 
putrefaction resulting from fecal stagna- 
tion, which products enter the blood and 
circulate through every tissue of the 
body. 

All cases of proctitis are more or less 
accompanied by constipation and diar- 
rhea. In all cases of chronic constipa- 
tion I have found proctitis, and often 
colitis, and am forced to believe it is the 
most common and proximate cause of 
chronic constipation of the bowels. Con- 
stipation being a primary symptom, there 
must of necessity follow numerous sec- 
ondary symptoms, of which diarrhea 
well marks the progress of septic in- 
fection. Some of the symptoms of in- 
fection are headache, megrim, vertigo, 
19 



Intestinal Ills 

dyspepsia, foul tongue and mouth, back- 
aches, stiff neck, gnawing pain or numb 
feeling at the lower end of the spine, 
biliousness, bad odor from breath and 
skin, muddy complexion, cold hands and 
feet, jaundice, neurasthenia, loss of mem- 
ory, drowsy feeling, pernicious anemia, 
emaciation, flabby obesity with pallor, 
capricious appetite, fits of great mental 
depression, palpitation of the heart, bloat- 
ing of the stomach and bowels, disturbance 
of the kidneys, liver, lungs and mucous 
membrane in general, and especially 
chronic rhinitis and pharyngitis, which 
latter are among the first symptoms of 
imperfect alimentary excretion. 

As auto-intoxication (that condition of 
the system when it is continually poisoned, 
usually by one's own excretions) gains the 
mastery of the vital forces at any period of 
life, the mucous membranes are likely to 
be first affected by inflammation of ca- 
tarrhal character ; then the serous mem- 
branes of the body. Mal-assimilation, 
mal-nutrition, cell-atrophy, are symptoms 



Digestion and Egestion 

of the giving way of the vital energies to 
the invasion of the fihh and bacterial poi- 
sons absorbed from the intestinal canal. 

On the inner surface of the alimentary 
canal, from the stomach to the colon, 
there are, it is estimated, over 20,000,000 
rootlets (called glands, lacteals, follicles, 
villi), which take up intestinal juices as 
roots of a plant take sap from the soil. 
These millions of rootlets give a velvety 
appearance to the alimentary canal, like a 
nap or downy surface. Intestinal root- 
lets of the small intestines, like vegetal 
rootlets, demand a certain amount of nor- 
mal fluid and solid substance, free from 
noxious gas. It is the down or nap of 
fabrics, and not their body, that shows 
damage first. So it is with the frail 
structure of vegetal and animal life if not 
properly supplied with nourishment from 
day to day. There is probably in the veg- 
etal bodies a continuous circulation of sap 
corresponding to the digestive circulating 
fluids of the alimentary canal. This cir- 
culation from the alimentary canal to the 



Intestinal Ills 

blood-vessels, and from the blood-vessels 
to the alimentary canal, involves a won- 
derful mechanism, facilitating the flow of 
several gallons daily from each to the 
other during the process of metamor- 
phosis of food into flesh. You can thus 
see how inevitable it is that the functions 
of these millions of secreting and excret- 
ing rootlets will be disturbed by the 
clogging of the system with filth and 
bacterial poisons as a consequence of 
chronic constipation, biliousness and gen- 
eral foulness of the alimentary canal. 
Through such disturbance nutrition is 
diminished, cell-atrophy progresses, and 
emaciation becomes more marked. The 
progressive destruction of these rootlets, 
involving the pathological change indi- 
cated, will be manifest In one of its results, 
either costlveness or diarrhea. 

Often the power of properly digesting 
and absorbing the foodstuffs is so greatly 
diminished that the alimentary canal Is 
about as useless as a soft rubber tube. 
Millions on millions of these glands, lac- 



Digestion and Egestion 

teals and follicles In the stomach and 
small intestines, are destroyed like the 
rootlets of a plant or tree In unwholesome 
soil. The active circulation of the digest- 
ive fluids ceases, and the sufferer is said 
to be costive or to have chronic diarrhea. 
Both symptoms are the outgrowth of 
many years of Intestinal foulness, and In- 
dicate the degree and character of Intes- 
tinal Irritability and seml-starvatlon of the 
body, as a consequence of either the ab- 
sorption of poisons or the excessive elim- 
ination of the vital substance of the body 
through diarrhea. 



23 



CHAPTER III. 

THE INTER-DEPENDENCE OF ANUS, RECTUM, 
SIGMOID FLEXURE, AND COLON. 

PHYSIOLOGICALLY, or in a nor- 
mal state, the rectum is not a recep- 
tacle for liquids and feces but a conduit 
during the act of defecation. Should, 
therefore, the feces have passed into the 
rectum and the desire to stool be not re- 
sponded to — though the desire continue 
urgent — the feces will be returned to the 
sigmoid cavity by physiological action. 
When, however, the functions of the anus 
and rectum are disturbed by chronic in- 
flammation, etc., the lower portion of the 
rectum becomes a more or less roomy 
pouch, a receptacle for feces and liquids ; 
and instead of being physiologically empty 
it becomes pathologically distended, the 
result of spasmodic action or of more or 

less permanent stricture of the sphincter 

24 



Inter-Dependence of Organs 

ani. See illustration in my book entitled 
How to Become Strong (page 14). 

The putrid fecal mass of solid and liquid 
contents accumulated in the artificial res- 
ervoir at the end of the intestinal sewer, 
is one of the most common and serious 
pathogenic (disease-producing) and pyo- 
genic (pus-producing) sources, which, by 
auto-infection, afflict man from infancy to 
old age. Here — in the dilated and ob- 
structed sewer — the ptomain and leuco- 
main class of poisons, and many of the 
poisonous germs, led by the king of 
morbid disturbers, the bacillus coli com- 
munis, find another and last chance to be 
taken up by the absorbing cells of the 
mucous membrane and returned to the 
blood ; with which they are carried to all 
parts of the body, clogging the glands, 
choking up the pores and obstructing the 
circulation, thereby causing congestion 
and inflammation of the various organs. 
The action of cathartics, laxatives, etc., 
fills the ano-rectal cavity with a watery 
solution of foul substances ; this solution 
25 



Intestinal Ills 

Is readily absorbed Into the circulation, 
aggravating the auto-intoxication (the es- 
tabHshed self-poisoned condition) already 
existing. Danger does not end with the 
absorption of bacterial poisons, as we 
have to reckon with the deleterious effects 
of the various intestinal gases, resulting, 
with rapid augmentation of volume, from 
the putrefactive changes in the imprisoned 
feculent matter. 

A sphincter ani permanently constricted 
or irritable owing to disease results in an 
abnormal receptacle just above the anal 
orifice (as shown in the illustration re- 
ferred to) ; and a constricted and irritable 
rectum results in the impaction and dilata- 
tion of the sigmoid cavity, which is nor- 
mally a receptacle, closed at Its lower end 
by circular fibres separating It (the cavity) 
from the rectum and performing the func- 
tion of a sphincter muscle. The rectal 
muscular fibres perform the office of a 
sphincter for the sigmoid cavity. The 
pathological changes that result In rectal 

Impaction of feces usually extend to the 

26 



Inter-Dependence of Organs 

sigmoid cavity. This cavity is 1 7^ inches 
in length, shaped in a double curve like 
an italic 6". Civilized man should con- 
sider the disturbance to the functional 
action of body and brain, and the danger 
to health and longevity involved in the 
storage of effete and fetid matter. The 
disturbance and danger are enhanced 
when the tissues of the sigmoid flexure 
and the rectum are invaded by inflamma- 
tion. A healthy action of the sigmoid 
receptacle depends on the rectum (a con- 
duit six to eight inches in length) ; and as 
it is the universal verdict that disease of 
the rectum is one of the most common 
maladies that afllict the human race, it 
must inevitably follow that the feces will 
be abnormally stored in the sigmoid cav- 
ity, occasioning thereby habitual constipa- 
tion which in turn brings on a host of 
functional disturbances throughout the 
system. 

The colon is a receptacle and a conduit 
some three feet in length (see ib. p. 13) 

and its action depends upon the ability 
27 



Intestinal Ills 

of the sigmoid flexure to perform its 
function as a final normal receptacle ; and 
this in turn upon the rectum, which de- 
pends on the sphincter ani. The colon 
does not appear to possess any digestive 
powers, though it is capable of absorbing 
substances. Its function is not only to 
receive and forward the trifling residue of 
food which escapes digestion and absorp- 
tion, but chiefly to excrete, through its 
own minute glands, the waste of the 
system coming from the blood. 

The excretion from these glands of the 
colon into the colon, plus the effete por- 
tion of the food received by the colon 
from the small intestine, approximate in 
weight from four to six ounces in an adult 
person in twenty-four hours ; and of this 
amount passed 75 per cent is water ; so 
that were the excreta dried the solid 
matter thus evacuated would not be found 
to weigh more than one ounce, or one 
and a half ounces. 



28 



CHAPTER IV. 

INDIGESTION, INTESTINAL GAS, AND OTHER 
MATTERS. 

WE noted the fact that the '' digestive 
secretions " in a man weighing 140 
pounds amount to twenty-three pounds 
in twenty-four hours ; now add to these 
the food and Hqulds taken in that period, 
and you will form some estimate of the 
work done in the human chemical labora- 
tory in its normal and abnormal states. 

We noted further that substances con- 
fined too long In receptacles decompose 
and generate pathogenic poisons, that Is, 
poisons productive of disease ; and that 
the intestinal reservoirs are no exception 
to this law of putrefactive changes. How 
could we avoid drawing the Inference, 
therefore, that disease-breeding germs, 
(generated in the organism and hence 
called " autogenetic " ), and their auto- 

29 



Intestinal Ills 

infection, i.e., absorption by the system, are 
an inevitable consequence of the undue 
retention and fermentation of the contents 
of these reservoirs : a consequence, in 
other words, of that intestinal uncleanli- 
ness commonly called biliousness, con- 
stipation, indigestion. 

By far the most common and immediate 
source of autogenetic (self-produced) poi- 
sons and their auto-infection, is some degree 
of chronic constipation and the deadening, 
smothering effects of constipation on di- 
gestion ; an effect analogous to what takes 
place when we allow waste material or 
ashes to bank up against a fire, shutting 
off its draft. Does the fire then continue 
to digest the coal ? Clog up the receptacle 
for ashes and the coal grows cold. Dam 
up the colon or sigmoid and digestion is 
disturbed, diminished and debased, as 
evidenced by the local and general dis- 
comfort, and later by the train of inevita- 
ble disorders. 

Indigestion is a household word. It 
has the widest range of all the diseases, 

30 



Poisons and Gases 

because it forms a part of almost every 
other ; and some diseases, such as chronic 
catarrh and puhnonary consumption, are 
in many cases produced by indigestion ; 
which in turn had its source in chronic 
constipation caused by injury or inflam- 
mation of the lower bowel, as explained 
in our first chapter. 

Diminished nutrition, impoverished 
blood, and loss of weight of from ten 
to twenty-five pounds, are the signs that 
indicate the coming disaster to the sufferer 
from auto - intoxication : the thoroughly 
poisoned state of the system resulting 
from auto-infection. 

Vessels used by the dairyman and by 
those who furnish us with food products 
and liquids are kept scrupulously clean. 
Why ? Because it is a question of loss of 
trade — of money. Should these vessels 
be used when foul from fermentation or 
putrefaction of their contents. Wealth 
would flee from the coffers of our purvey- 
ors, and the Boards of Health would, or 
rather should, take a hand in the matter. 

31 



Intestinal Ills 

And these same purveyors, by the way, 
why do they care more for Wealth than 
for Health, their own and ours? But 
why are we all of us so neglectful of Inner 
cleanliness and so careful of Outer ? The 
receptacles of the inner man reek with 
augean filth, and we cleanse them not. 
The immortal fountains of Health and 
Happiness are dammed, blasted and de- 
graded by just this neglect of our impera- 
tive duty ; the duty of furnishing full 
opportunity for the functions of replenish- 
ment and life, by keeping the sewer passages 
clear. 

Are a sour stomach and foul intestinal 
canal fit receptacles for food and liquids ? 
When our receptacles are in this condition, 
why do we add more material for the 
generation of poisons of the ptomain and 
leucomain classes, and morbid gaseous 
elements ? It has been demonstrated that 
during fermentation an apple will evolve 
a volume of gas six hundred times its own 
size. What folly then to add to the fer- 
menting mass ! Food taken under such 

32 



Poisons and Gases 

conditions will produce results not hard 
to imagine. 

The gases that are commonly found in 
the stomach and small intestines are car- 
bonic acid, nitrogen, oxygen and hydro- 
gen ; while, besides all these, sulphureted 
and carbureted hydrogen are found in 
the large intestine, causing in a normal 
state the necessary and useful distention 
of the alimentary canal. The writer has 
long regarded the abnormal production 
of gaseous substances in the intestinal 
canal from putrefactive changes as of it- 
self not only a grave menace to health, 
but as a condition productive of morbific 
results of which we have still much to 
learn. The more or less constant and 
excessive distention of the whole or even 
of a part of the intestinal canal by gases 
is a serious condition, affecting as it does 
the various organs of the body, not only 
through the absorption of these gases 
into the general circulation but also 
through the reflex nervous reaction of 
these organs. It is astonishing what 

33-3 



Intestinal Ills 

amount of mechanical force is exerted by 
the gases in the intestinal canal. They 
distend not only the muscular walls of the 
intestines and stomach but the strong ab- 
dominal walls as well, until the clothing 
worn has to be loosened for ease and 
comfort. This more or less extreme 
mechanical pressure may account for 
many cases of hernia, prolapse of the 
uterus, dislocation of various organs, dis- 
turbance of the circulation of the blood, 
and interference with the function of the 
nervous system, as indicated by its many 
protests in the way of aches and pains. 
Naval-constructor Hobson has lately de- 
monstrated the dynamic power of gas 
confined in bags or receptacles in raising 
battleships ; and it still remains for some 
physiologist or pathologist to demonstrate 
the morbid dynamic results of gases con- 
fined in the alimentary apparatus. The 
deleterious effect of the abnormal quan- 
tity of gases on all the organs of the body 
is imperfectly understood at present, but 
will be better apprehended when we are 

34 



Poisons and Gases 

able to study more minutely the patho- 
genic poisons of the human system. It is 
known, however, that a stream of carbonic 
acid gas, or even of hydrogen, will paralyze 
a muscle against which it is directed. 



35 



CHAPTER V. 

KEY TO AUTO-INFECTION. 

IN a previous chapter we stated that the 
average quantity of fecal discharge 
daily, by an adult, is from four to six 
ounces, and that of this weight 75 per 
cent is water. We referred of course to 
the daily passage from the bowels alone, 
not including that from the bladder. 

Our studies have thus furnished us 
with the key wherewith to unlock the 
secret chambers of auto-infection. What 
is that key ? It is the discovery that the 
system may possibly absorb as high as 
three-fourths of this feculent substance in 
the colon ; that this absorption is made 
possible by an obstructed or sluggish in- 
testinal canal where disease germs are 
propagated and lodged ; that these germs, 
along with a certain amount of excrement, 
invade the tissues by absorption ; and that 

36 



Intestinal Auto-Infection 

we thus have the system constantly satu- 
rated with poisonous germs and filth, re- 
excreted, re-absorbed and re-secreted — no 
one knows how many times — by the 
various organs of the body. 

That the importance of intestinal clean- 
liness may be better appreciated, I will 
quote from the following authors on the 
subjects of excretion, absorption and cir- 
culation of the intestinal fluids. 

Dr. Murchison states that : 

** From what is now known of the diffus- 
ibility of fluids through animal membranes, 
it is impossible to conceive bile long in 
contact with the lining membrane of the 
gall-bladder, bile-ducts, and intestine, with- 
out a portion of it (including the dissolved 
pigment) passing into the blood. A circu- 
lation is constantly taking place between 
the fluid contents of the bowel and the 
blood, the existence of which, till within 
the last few years, was quite unknown, and 
which even now is too little heeded. It is 
now known, says Dr. Parker, that in vary- 
ing degrees there is a constant transit of 
fluid from the blood into the alimentary 
canal, and as rapid absorption. The 

37 



Intestinal Ills 

amount thus poured out and absorbed in 
twenty-four hours is almost incredible, and 
of itself constitutes a secondary or inter- 
mediate circulation never dreamt of by 
Harvey. The amount of gastric juice 
alone passing into the stomach in a day, 
and then re-absorbed, amounted in the 
case lately examined by Grunewald to 
nearly 23 imperial pints. If we put it 
at 12 pints we shall certainly be within 
the mark. The pancreas, according to 
Kroger, furnishes 12^ pints in twenty- 
four hours, while the salivary glands pour 
out at least 3 pints in the same time. 
The amount of the bile is probably over 
2 pints. The amount given out by the 
intestinal mucous membrane cannot be 
guessed at, but must be enormous. Alto- 
gether the amount of fluid effused into 
the alimentary canal in twenty-four hours 
amounts to much more than the whole 
amount of blood in the body (which is 
18 pounds in a man weighing 143 pounds) ; 
in other words, every portion of the blood 
may, and possibly does, pass several times 
into the alimentary canal in twenty-four 
hours. The effect of this continual out- 
pouring is supposed to be to aid metamor- 
phosis ; the same substance more or less 

38 



Intestinal Auto-Infection 

changed seems to be thrown out and re- 
absorbed until it be adapted for the repair 
of tissues, or become effete." 

The reader will readily perceive how 
the system may become so charged that 
other organs of the body will vicariously 
attempt to play the part of a receptacle 
and conduit for the bowel, in order to ex- 
crete and eliminate ancient and offensive 
filth and bacterial poisons. The phenom- 
enon of vicarious excretion may occur 
through the kidneys, lungs, skin, throat, 
nose, vagina, or uterus, thus keeping up 
chronic diseases and discharges that would 
not exist but for the chronic constipation 
or even for incomplete action of the bowels 
each day. Over-distention of the rectum, 
sigmoid and colon, due to the pressure of 
gases and the impaction of feces, results 
in inflammation, ulceration, stricture, ap- 
pendicitis, abscess, strangulation, intus- 
susception, and abnormal ballooning or 
roominess in certain portions of these in- 
testines or conduits. This roominess, 
though it becomes filled with feces, and 

39 



Intestinal Ills 

often with liquids, permits of sufficient 
space for even the dally passage of feces 
without dislodging the stored contents. 
The fact that there Is a passage dally de- 
ceives both sufferer and medical adviser as 
to the source of the poisonous condition 
of the system, and masks the origin of 
such disorders as chronic Inflammation 
and ulceration of the nose, throat, lungs, 
stomach, duodenum, colon, appendix ver- 
miformls, uterus, bladder, kidneys and 
edema of the legs. But these evidences of 
auto-Infectlon are generally preceded and 
accompanied by a general loss of vitality 
and weight, by anemia, by a lowering of 
the resisting power of the organism — all 
of which produce a fit soil for the various 
diseases to which flesh Is heir. As soon 
as the system becomes saturated with 
bacteria and effete matter, auto-intoxlca- 
tlon results. In which condition there Is 
but little or no store of vitality for resist- 
ance, reaction and recuperation. 

Dr. Bright has recorded several in- 
stances of fecal accumulation In the colon 

40 



Intestinal Auto-Infection 

mistaken for enlargement of the liver and 
for malignant tumors. In one of the 
cases there was jaundice which disap- 
peared after free evacuation of the bowels. 
Frerichs also relates a case where enlarge- 
ment from fecal accumulation was at first 
ascribed to a pregnant uterus, and subse- 
quently, on the supervention of deep 
jaundice, to an enlarged liver, but in 
which purgatives dispelled the patient's 
anxiety about a diseased liver and at the 
same time her hopes for a child. 

Dr. N. Chapman, in his Clinical Lec- 
tures (p. 304), says : 

"The feces sometimes accumulate in 
distinct indurated scybala or in enormous 
masses, solid and compact. Taunton, 
a surgeon of London, has a preparation 
of the colon and rectum of more than 
twenty inches in circumference contain- 
ing three gallons of feces, taken from 
a woman, whose abdomen was as much 
distended as in the maturity of preg- 
nancy. By Lemazurier, another case is 
reported of a pregnant woman, who was 
constipated for two months, from whom, 

41 



Intestinal Ills 

after death, thirteen and one-half pounds 
of solid feces were taken away, though a 
short time before between two and three 
pounds had been scraped out of the rec- 
tum. Cases are reported by Dr. Graves 
of Dublin, which he saw in women, where 
from the great distentions in certain di- 
rections of the abdomen, the one was 
considered to be owing to a prodigious 
hypertrophy of the liver, and the other of 
the ovary ; in the latter of which he re- 
moved a bucket-full of feces in two days. 
Mr. Wilmot of London has recently given 
a case where a gallon of matter was 
lodged in the caecum, and the intestines 
perforated by ulceration." 

Dr. Pavy, in his treatise on The Func- 
tions of Digestion (p. 232), writes: 

'* The morbid conditions that constipa- 
tion may occasion are of various kinds. 
Under an undue retention of fecal matters 
within the colon noxious products may be 
formed there, and act as irritants upon 
the mucous coat, setting up inflammation, 
followed by ulceration. It is to be here 
remarked that fecal matters are sometimes 
retained in the sacculi or pouches of the 
colon, and may give rise to the circum- 

42 



Intestinal Auto-Infection 

stances referred to, whilst a passage exists 
along the centre of the canal that shall 
permit a daily evacuation to occur. The 
dejections, even, may be loose in char- 
acter, and still the same sequence of 
events ensue. From the irritating influ- 
ence of preternaturally retained feces, 
colicky pains are, as a rule, induced, and 
the ultimate effects may be such as to lead 
to the production of fatal inflammation. 

'* The effect of constipation upon the 
muscular coat of the bowel is, through 
distention to which it is subjected, to 
weaken or deteriorate its evacuating 
power. As the result of a great amount 
of distention, like as happens in the case 
of the urinary bladder, more or less com- 
plete paralysis is induced. From the 
prolonged retention of fecal matter ac- 
companying constipation, excrementitious 
products that ought to be eliminated be- 
come absorbed and thereby contaminate 
the contents of the circulatory system. 
As the result of this contamination, the 
secretions become vitiated, and a general 
disturbance of the conditions of life is 
produced. The action of the liver be- 
coming deranged, its eliminative office is 
imperfectly discharged, and thus sallow- 

43 



Intestinal Ills 

ness of the face and a bilious-tinged con- 
junctiva are produced. A coated tongue, 
foul mouth, loss of appetite, and other 
dyspeptic manifestations, accompany the 
general disorder of the digestive organs 
that prevails. The accumulation existing 
In the colon leads to a sense of distention 
and uneasiness in the abdomen. The 
kidneys vicariously discharge products 
that ought to have been eliminated by 
the alimentary canal. In this manner 
the urine becomes preternaturally loaded. 
From the contaminated state of the blood 
the functions of animal life also become 
disturbed ; and hence the lassitude, debil- 
ity, headache, giddiness and dejected 
spirits, that form such frequent accompani- 
ments of constipation. ... A distended 
caecum, colon, and rectum may also, by 
the pressure exerted upon the nerves and 
vessels of the lower extremities, be the 
cause of numbness, cramps, pains and 
edema of the legs. The edema occasioned 
by constipation, if not exclusively confined 
to one side, will In all probability be de- 
cidedly greater in one leg than in the 
other." 

Case (from Gaz. Mdd, de Paris, July 

44 



Intestinal Auto-Infection 

20, 1839) • ^ woman of fifty was troubled 
with habitual diarrhea and frequent calls 
to urinate, in which urine could be dis- 
charged only by drops. After six years of 
suffering and unsuccessful use of remedies, 
she was examined for the first time per 
anum, and an accumulation of fecal matter 
discovered, forming a mass the size of an 
infant's head. This was removed and 
found to weigh four pounds. She then 
got well. 



45 



CHAPTER VI. 

HOW AUTO-INFECTION AFFECTS THE GASTRIC 
DIGESTION, AND VICE VERSA. 

FREDERICK the Great said that all 
culture comes through the stomach. 
This saying emphasizes pithily the de- 
pendence of psychology upon physiology. 
The stomach with the intestines is certainly 
the source from which every portion of the 
body receives its nourishment and most 
of its diseases. The physiological plus 
and minus processes leave their reflex 
on the mind. 

Prof. Ch. Bouchard, in his lectures on 
Auto-Intoxication (Oliver's trans., p. 14), 
says : '' The organism in its normal, as in 
its pathological state, is a receptacle and 
a laboratory of poisons. Amongst these 
some are formed by the organism itself, 
others by microbes, which either are the 
guests, the normal inhabitants of the 

46 



Functional Disturbances 

intestinal tube, or are parasites at second- 
hand, and disease producing." 

In the preceding chapters we have men- 
tioned some of the most common cases 
of retention of excreta in the rectum, 
sigmoid cavity, colon, cecum, duodenum 
and stomach, and how the consequent 
foul conditions often resulted in diarrhea. 
Auto-infection impairs the functions of 
every organ in the body, by clogging the 
pores with poisons and filth. By the trans- 
fer of disease germs from one infected, 
that is, tainted, contaminated part of the 
body to parts that were free from infec- 
tion, the kidneys, mucous membrane and 
skin receive these unnatural products, and 
their functions are disturbed thereby. The 
disturbance of the various organs through- 
out the system sets up such a multiplicity 
of symptoms that one gets the impression 
of a pandemonium — a veritable council- 
hall of evil spirits. The visitation is 
omnipresent. Infliction, misery, are every- 
where. The taint of auto-generated in- 
testinal morbific products, carried and 

47 



Intestinal Ills 

communicated to the remotest parts, 
manifests itself now here now there as if 
it were a local trouble, and it is difficult 
therefore, nay, impossible, to classify scien- 
tifically the symptoms of auto-infection. 
A classification, though necessarily im- 
perfect, will aid in the diagnosis and 
treatment of the various abnormal condi- 
tions of the stomach and intestines, that 
is, of mal-digestion. The sympathy, good 
understanding and responsiveness between 
the brain and the digestive apparatus are 
so close and intimate that the physician 
must take into consideration the inter- 
relationship of these organs before decid- 
ing which one is reporting reflex nervous 
symptoms, and which direct symptoms. 
Plutarch says in one of his essays : *' Should 
the body sue the mind before a court 
judicature for damages, it would be found 
that the mind had been a ruinous tenant 
to its landlord." The digestive apparatus 
is, or should be, a farm for the mind, 
but unfortunately it usually has to wait 
twenty or more years before the tenant 

48 



Functional Disturbances 

understands how to cultivate it for the 
uses of his intellectual and esthetical life. 
I have referred to the fact that the 
most common causes of constipation, in- 
digestion and other foul conditions of the 
alimentary canal favorable to the produc- 
tion of autogenetic poisons and their 
auto-infection, are such common and 
every-day matters, so familiar to almost 
every one that the victim, the parents 
and the physician feel no alarm of the 
coming danger for years. During these 
ignorant and innocent years the poison 
and filth were being absorbed, infecting 
the system with their morbific taint and 
lowering the quality of the blood and 
lessening its quantity, producing the state 
known as anemia. Associated with pro- 
gressive anemia is mal-assimilation, im- 
proper nutrition, ebbing of the nervous 
and vital forces and the lessening of the 
secretory, excretory and digestive powers. 
By the time the poor victim is weighing 
fifteen to twenty-five pounds less than he 
ought to the symptoms of ill-health are 

49—4 



Intestinal Ills 

sufficiently alarming to compel the sufferer 
to seek medical aid for disease of the 
stomach, bowels, liver, kidneys, lungs, etc. 
Slow digestion is perhaps the most com- 
mon form of functional disturbance of the 
stomach, due to an insidious auto-infection 
for years. The eyes and the skin begin 
to show the effect of the poisonous infec- 
tion. The skin becomes dry, pale and 
muddy in color ; has more or less annoy- 
ing eruptions, and exhibits a jaundiced 
appearance. The body is ill nourished, 
the nervous system depressed, the blood 
impoverished, the memory failing, the gen- 
eral appearance languid, irritable, anxious. 
What a household picture this is to every 
one of the human family ! But let us fill 
it out somewhat more fully. Note how 
the undue delay of food in the stomach 
occasions a sense of weight and oppres- 
sion, the feeling beginning about an hour 
after a meal and continuing for hours, 
sometimes attended with fermentation and 
sometimes without it. At times there is 
a feeling of drowsiness due to the absorp- 

50 



Functional Disturbances 

tion of an excessive amount of the gases 
which distend the stomach and bowels, 
and this absorption is accompanied by 
pains in the stomach, head, between the 
shoulders and in the region of the heart. 
Sleep is disturbed by dreams, or one is 
awakened with a feeling of numbness and 
palpitation of the heart. At times the 
urine is scanty, strongly acid or high-col- 
ored. The tongue is more or less foul, 
with white or creamy coating. Now and 
then tasteless or saltish eructations occur. 
The appetite may be too good, or there 
is no appetite at all. Note the careworn 
expression, the wondering what to eat, 
what to drink or what remedy to take. 
So between much worse and some better, 
the trouble continues — both of body and 
mind. 

Indigestion, however, with undue for- 
mation of acids proper, or acids unna- 
tural, to the stomach, is a much more 
annoying affliction than slow digestion. 
The sufferer from indigestion may be de- 
bilitated, anemic, may have a general 
51 



Intestinal Ills 

want of tone ; or he may be a more or 
less vigorous and plethoric person. In 
some cases flatulence is very troublesome. 
But the most usual symptoms are heart- 
burn, acid eructations that produce burn- 
ing sensations, sour taste at intervals or 
constantly in the mouth, setting the teeth 
on edge. In the more vigorous or ple- 
thoric sufferers a gouty diathesis may ex- 
ist, which may result in a tendency to 
inflammation, bringing on neuralgia, rheu- 
matism, gout, etc. Tongue more or less 
foul ; uric acid in the system ; confusion 
in the mind ; headaches ; pains in the 
loins, legs and feet ; in fact, more or less 
shifting pains everywhere : these are the 
common exhibits of indigestion. On the 
whole, the sufferer is a victim to an irri- 
table body and a fretful mind, necessitat- 
ing the cultivation by him of patience and 
the effort to be agreeable. 

Besides the symptoms mentioned, in- 
digestion may also be accompanied by 
gastric pain or by uneasiness at the pit 
of the stomach. It may be a sense of 

52 



Functional Disturbances 

fulness or tightness, or a feeling of dis- 
tention or weight, or again, a feeling of 
emptiness, goneness or sinking. Now 
and then there are burning, tearing, gnaw- 
ing, dragging sensations under the breast- 
bone ; and there is a general complaint of 
a capricious appetite, heartburn, vomiting, 
nervous headache, neuralgia and cold ex- 
tremities. Other symptoms are pain from 
lack of food at the proper hour, or from 
food taken at the improper time ; both of 
which practices may be followed by flatu- 
lency, occasioning a swollen, drum-like 
condition of the stomach and abdomen ; 
the body of the tongue will be coated 
white, while the edges will present a 
redder appearance than in health. 

Impaired digestion with nervous symp- 
toms — in which the morbid sensibility of 
the mind is apparently the greatest — is 
called hypochondria. This class of suf- 
ferers, whose bodily and mental ills and 
morbid fears are so chaotically interwoven, 
are deserving of much consideration. So 
numerous are their fears and so fertile 

53 



Intestinal Ills 

are their reasons for the many changes 
they arbitrarily make in their efforts to 
get well or keep from getting worse, so 
obstinately sure are they of being always 
right — that we can but give them our 
sincerest pity. 

In some cases the functional troubles 
of the stomach and mind are aggravated 
by disease of the pelvic organs, which 
adds to the depression of the mind through 
nervous sympathy with the abdominal 
organs. 

Dr. Cullen says on this point : — 

''In certain persons there is a state of 
mind distinguished by a concurrence of 
the following circumstances : a languor, a 
listlessness, or want of resolution and ac- 
tivity with respect to all undertakings ; a 
disposition to seriousness, sadness and 
timidity as to all future events ; an appre- 
hension of the worst or most unhappy 
state of them ; and therefore, often upon 
slight grounds, an apprehension of great 
evil. Such persons are particularly atten- 
tive to the state of their own health, to 
every smallest change of feeling in their 

54 



Functional Disturbances 

bodies ; and from any unusual feeling, per- 
haps of the slightest kind, they apprehend 
great danger and even death itself. In 
respect to all these feelings and appre- 
hensions, there is commonly the most ob- 
stinate belief and persuasion." (Quoted 
in Leared, On Imperfect Digestion, p. io6.) 



55 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOW AUTO-INFECTION AFFECTS INTESTINAL 
DIGESTION, AND VICE VERSA. 

INTESTINAL indigestion is a more 
common form of functional disturbance 
than is gastric indigestion. It is a well 
established fact that the greater portion of 
the digestive work is done beyond the 
stomach, in the duodenum, by the hepatic 
and pancreatic fluids. The duodenum — 
very properly called the second stomach — 
has none of the peculiar characteristics 
of a receptacle that receives crude sub- 
stances — the office of the stomach. Much 
greater sensitiveness characterizes the 
digestive canal than the stomach ; which 
is accounted for by the fact that a net- 
work of nerves, forming the sympathetic 
system, surrounds the bowels. The symp- 
toms of intestinal indigestion are not 
always clearly defined and distinguishable 

56 



Impaction and Inflammation 

from gastric indigestion, especially as the 
two are frequently associated. 

The cecum, more than any other por- 
tion of the digestive canal, resembles the 
stomach, and it secretes an acid, albumin- 
ous fluid having considerable solvent 
properties. It is to be observed that as 
the cecum is only three inches in length 
and two and a half in diameter, and as its 
contents are necessarily propelled in oppo- 
sition to gravity, a slight casualty will 
hinder or obstruct the upward movement 
of the pultaceous mass of the effete in- 
gesta. The turning point in the ascend- 
ing colon affords another ready hindrance 
to the upward and onward movement of 
this mass ; and the gases and ancient 
feces beyond the turn conduce to further 
sluggish peristalsis, bringing about more 
or less obstruction and reflex irritation of 
the remaining length of intestinal canal. 
Undue retention of the contents of the 
cecum, and the disturbance and obstruc- 
tion of the duodenum by the pressure in- 
cident to the distention of the colon with 

57 



Intestinal Ills 

feces and gases, lead to congestion, in- 
flammation and occasionally to ulceration 
of the mucous membrane in various parts 
of the intestinal tube. 

This condition of affairs increases the 
occlusion (closing) of the bowels, but 
makes very easy indeed the entrance and 
propagation of micro-organisms in the 
sub-mucous coat of the intestine. The 
conditions are now ripe and rife for 
auto-infection. Which of the following 
microbes are the most active agents 
of progressive auto-infection : the strep- 
tococcus lanceolatus, the bacterium 
pyogenes, the bacillus subtilis, the sta- 
phylococci, the bacterium coli commune ? 
They all play a part in the game, redu- 
cing the body in time to a charnel-house. 
Or are such substances as putrescein, ca- 
daverin, skatol or indol — which are de- 
rived through chemical change in the 
putrescent mass — contributors to the 
spread of the poisonous taint throughout 
the system ? Any single one or a group 
of the fifty or more bacterial poisons may 

58 



Impaction and Inflammation 

be the responsible agents in the ensuing 
auto-infection. Chemical analysis of the 
gases resulting from decomposition re- 
veals oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, car- 
bonic acid, protocarbonated hydrogen and 
sulphureted hydrogen, ammonia, and sul- 
phate of ammonia. Leucin, tyrosin, lithic 
acid, lithates, xanthin, cystin, keratin, sul- 
phureted hydrogen, etc., are deposits in 
the urine and are signs of the derangement 
of the intestinal canal and liver. The ex- 
ternal symptoms observed are the follow- 
ing : the tongue is large, pale, flabby and 
indented by the teeth at the edge of the 
anterior third, while its surface is white 
and the papillae often enlarged ; the appe- 
tite may be excellent, though there is 
great functional derangement of the liver 
with lithemia, so that the sufferer is 
tempted to eat what he knows from ex- 
perience will disagree with him ; a bitter 
coppery taste in the mouth, due to tauro- 
cholic acid — a common symptom of lithe- 
mia or of imperfect oxidation of albumen ; 
emaciation, fatigue, depression, headache, 

59 



Intestinal Ills 

buzzing in the ears and deafness, disturb- 
ance of sight, loss of memory, faintness 
and vertigo, very marked in some cases ; 
sometimes tenderness and pain under the 
cartilages of the right ribs ; the fretting 
of the sensitive surface of the bowels by 
imperfectly digested, semi-putrescent food, 
resulting sometimes in convulsions, coma, 
paralysis, or in fetid diarrhea of an acid 
character producing a burning sensation 
or pain of the anus when the discharges 
are being passed ; rumbling and twisting 
sensations in the region of the navel oc- 
curring with flatulency, and occasionally 
colicky pains which at times are so se- 
vere as to simulate poisoning. 

In some people certain articles of food, 
without being either toxic or putrid, in- 
duce indigestion and the production of 
microbes in quantity amounting to one 
third of fecal dejections. Prof. Ch, 
Bouchard says : 

** The consequence of this development 
of acid in the whole length of the diges- 
tive tube is an inflammatory condition. 

60 



Impaction and Inflammation 

We notice catarrh of the stomach, ulcera- 
tive gastritis, to which patients often 
succumb after twenty-five years of bad 
stomach ; these are the false cancers, as 
they are called, or malignant gastritis 
without tumor. The large intestine is 
inflamed ; around the fecal matterare seen 
glairy secretions and sometimes blood 
(membranous enteritis)." (Op. cit, p. 159.) 

In chronic inflammation of the rectum 
and colon there is more or less dis- 
charge of mucous, and in some cases of 
membranous, desquamation, with yellow 
or bloody mucus. The shreds, cords or 
complete tubular casts are discharged 
constantly or at varying intervals. The 
quantity and character often alarm the 
sufferer. The discharge is nothing less 
than a thick, tenacious mucus that had 
formed a thin coating on the inflamed 
mucous membrane, and become exfoli- 
ated in casts or thin shreds — the result 
of many years of morbid intestinal exag- 
gerated action. 

Microscopical examination of the des- 
61 



Intestinal Ills 

quamated intestinal membrane and mu- 
cus from a man forty years of age, revealed 
the following products : crystals, mostly 
complete ; incomplete phosphates, very 
numerous ; mucous shreds in abundance ; 
fat globules and granules, numerous ; anal 
epithelia ; red blood globules, few ; con- 
nective tissue, scanty ; pus corpuscles, 
very few ; margaric acid and detritus 
(substances resulting from the destruction 
or wearing away of the part) ; undi- 
gested material, mostly cellulose ; lepto- 
thrix threads, micrococci ; and the bacillus 
coli communis. Diagnosis : foul, undi- 
gested material, due to a chronic inflam- 
mation of the lower intestinal tract. The 
microscopical examination of mucus and 
desquamated membrane from a woman 
sixty-five years of age, disclosed that she 
was suffering from proctitis and colitis. 
She wrote : '* Please tell me how long 
this mucous discharge must continue. I 
am alarmed at the quantity of membrane, 
cords, casts, etc., in my excreta, and I 

think that if this process goes on much 

62 



Impaction and Inflammation 

longer there will soon be no bowels left 
to purify." This letter was written some 
weeks after contracting a severe cold, 
which accounts for the unusual amount of 
exfoliation and mucus. The sample she 
sent contained a large quantity of mucus, 
both threads and corpuscles ; with a mod- 
erate number of epithelial scales, partly 
anal and partly intestinal. Pus corpus- 
cles were present in small numbers ; also 
vegetable fibres, fat, starch, muscle fibres 
and cellulose — the remains of undigested 
material. In the membranes themselves 
no micro-organisms were found ; in the 
pieces containing undigested material the 
bacillus coll communis was found as well 
as micrococci, and the bacilli of putrefac- 
tion (secondary formation) were seen. 



63 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE CAUSE OF CONSTIPATION AND HOW WE 
IGNORANTLY TREAT IT. 

ONE of the best preparations for active 
life is a first-class intestinal canal. 

'' An old Scotch physician," says Sir 
Astley Cooper, " for whom I had a great 
respect and whom I frequently met in 
consultation, used to say to me as we were 
about to enter our patient's room together, 
' Weel, Misther Cooper, we ha' only twa 
things to keep in meend, and they '11 serve 
us for here and herea'ter ; one is au'ways 
to hae the fear o' the Laird before our 
e'es, that '11 do for herea'ter ; and th' 
t'other is to keep our boo'els au'ways open, 
and that '11 do for here.' " 

A person whose mind is devoted to the 
realization of ideals, and whose body has 
a set of bowels that perform the act of 

64 



Diagnosis and Treatment Wrong 

defecation twice every twenty-four hours, 
is doubly prepared for a useful life. 

" If thou well observe 

In what thou eat'st and drink'st, seek from thence 

Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight, 

Till many years over thy head return : 

So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop 

Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease 

Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature." 

Milton's advice in poetic lines is all 
very well for those who have escaped 
chronic inflammation of the lower bowels, 
an ailment common and troublesome even 
under the very best dietetic regulations. 

Inflammation having once penetrated 
the circular and longitudinal muscular 
fibres or bands of a section of the intes- 
tine, all hope of a comfortable existence is 
at an end, for such inflammation will bring 
on constipation and constipation nervous 
misery. It is inevitable that inflamma- 
tion should determine this outcome since 
it induces spasmodic contraction of the 
muscular walls of the tube, lessening the 
bore or closing the portion of the canal 

invaded. Plastic infiltration takes place 
65-5 



Intestinal Ills 

In the walls of the gut, thickening and 
binding them together ; or, if the inflam- 
mation be of a simple catarrhal or atrophic 
nature, the plastic Infiltration will more 
or less bind the circular muscular bands 
of the gut together in their abnormally 
contracted state ! The presence of feces 
and gases above the zone of the disease 
will Increase the Irritation and contraction 
of the affected portion of the Intestine. 
Consequent upon these changes wrought 
by Inflammation, gases and excrementl- 
tlous material are perforce Imprisoned in 
the Intestine, inducing constipation, foul 
fermentation, flatulency, diarrhea, indiges- 
tion, nausea, loss of appetite, sick head- 
ache and. In fine, autogenetic poisons, 
the source of auto-infection, ending In 
auto-Intoxication, the chronic poisoned 
condition of the system. 

Since the most common cause of chronic 
constipation. Internal sluggishness and un- 
cleanllness, is known, too much cannot be 
said in condemnation of the wide-spread 
abuse of ''liver and atony persuaders" 

66 



Diagnosis and Treatment Wrong 

and the use of irritating suppositories and 
dilating bougies, candles, etc. The numer- 
ous and various drastic purgative nos- 
trums — which literally fill our medical 
literature — and the universal demand for 
them, are evidence of this very common 
disease, which disease is rendered worse 
by the drugs taken for the relief of a foul 
intestinal alveus. An abnormal amount 
of watery secretion is forced by the drug 
into the foul canal, to mix there with its 
contents, of which the major portion is 
retained and re-absorbed into the system. 
And to make the bad condition and treat- 
ment worse, all such sufferers, as a rule, 
drink very little water, some scarcely 
any. 

The demand for an irritating stimulus 
to " open the bowels " (the exciters con- 
tribute to close them) is largely due to 
the popular error in thinking, *' I can 
treat my own bowels quite as well as the 
doctor, if not better." No intelligent 
person would think of stimulating and 
irritating daily an inflamed region of tissue 
67 



Intestinal Ills 

on the outer portion of the body ; yet 
this is precisely what intelligent persons 
do when they habitually use liver and 
peristaltic persuaders. The primary dis- 
ease in the lower bowels and the conse- 
quent symptoms are gradually aggravated 
as the *' physic " habit is formed. 

As in the case of opium fiends and 
drunkards, so with habitual cathartic drug- 
users, should they be suddenly deprived 
of the accustomed artificial stimulus and 
irritant they become absolutely miserable, 
mentally and physically. It is a well- 
known physiological fact that every arti- 
ficial stimulation of the intestines is 
followed by a corresponding loss of vital- 
ity and reaction. Now that the almost 
universal cause of undue retention of foul, 
effete matter has been ascertained, it is 
important to communicate to the world at 
large the best means of cleansing the 
bowels without increasing the local pri- 
mary disease and its annoying symptoms. 

That external physical cleanliness is 
next to godliness is an apt proverb. That 

68 



Diagnosis and Treatment Wrong 

internal physical cleanliness is nearer to 
godliness no one will deny. 

Water Is a universal solvent and thera- 
peutic agent and Is therefore Indispensa- 
ble In the cleansing and purifying of the 
Integument and mucous membrane of the 
body. A large quantity of water Is neces- 
sary to carry on the functions of the ani- 
mal economy. Water enters every cell 
and fibre of the living organism, aiding In 
nutrition and In the elimination of worn- 
out tissues which If retained turn into 
poisons. 

It Is really not an Intelligent but rather 
a barbarous practice to prescribe liver 
and Intestinal exciters for the purpose of 
throwing Into the alimentary tract a suffi- 
cient quantity of watery excretions to 
'* cleanse Itself " ; to succeed they must 
first soften and liquefy the dry, hardened 
feces and scybalous masses (little ancient, 
bullet-like formations) Imprisoned above 
an Inflamed and fevered lower bowel, even 
colon. 

Normal feces consist of 75 per cent 

69 



Intestinal Ills 

water ; and when unduly retained In the 
colon much of this fetid percentage Is 
absorbed Into the system. Then drugs 
are prescribed to liquefy the hardened 
putrid remnant and absorption begins 
again : a fact very shocking to a sensitive, 
even sensible, person. 



70 



CHAPTER IX. 

CURES FOR CONSTIPATION : " FEARFULLY AND 
WONDERFULLY MADE." 

DISEASES of the anus and rectum 
are very common, very numerous 
and of very critical consequences. This 
is especially true of the disease of chronic 
inflammation, one of whose symptoms is 
piles or hemorrhoids. In the writings of 
the early Greek and Roman physicians 
will be found minute descriptions of the 
latter disorder. But on the whole, the 
most important symptom of chronic in- 
flammation of the lower bowel, and the 
most far-reaching in its morbific results, 
is that protean monster, chronic consti- 
pation. It deranges more lives, from 
infancy to old age, than any other patho- 
logical condition that can be named. 

For the cause and cure of that mere 
symptom of a disease, constipation, the 

71 



Intestinal Ills 

so-called scientific physicians, from the 
early history of medication to the present 
time, have had one immutable theory as 
to the leading cause, and one grand motto 
as to the '' safe and sure" cure. They 
have always prescribed remedies for this 
malady on the theory of portal congestion 
and hepatic derangement, and hence 
their supreme motto : '' Physic ! Physic / / 
Physic ! ! ! " 

The layman naturally adopted the the- 
ory and the motto of his medical advisers ; 
hence in his self-medication and also un- 
der advice he consumes such vast quanti- 
ties of purgative nostrums. 

I have just received some medical liter- 
ature beginning with the usual salutation 
— ** Dear Doctor " — setting forth a new 
and remarkable theory of the cause, and 
an original motto for the cure, of consti- 
pation. Its authors have discovered that 
the *' rectal nerve-tissues" are hungry, 
torpid, anemic, and to overcome the 
** atony" they must be ''Fed! Fed!! 
Fed! I r' 

72 



Theories and Medication 

*' The greatest of physical ills In Amer- 
ica," we are informed, '* is digestive torpor 
or semi-paralysis, originally induced by a 
kind of starvation of the intestinal nerve- 
tissues. One of its most prevalent forms 
is constipation," caused by ** local torpor 
or semi-paralysis, dependent upon an 
anemic condition of the nerve-tissues of 
the rectal region." By ** feeding directly " 
the limpid, bedraggled rectum and colon, 
they receive their ** appropriate nutriment, 
by which comes added vigor," — the nutri- 
ment the stomach and the rest of the sys- 
tem had failed to furnish on account of 
constipation, excessive fermentation, in- 
digestion and auto-infection. 

To overcome this ** atony " of two or 
more feet of the lower bowel, a little 
'* nutritious " suppository, weighing twenty 
grains, is a " specific." It is claimed to 
cure chronic auto-infection and the spas- 
modic occlusion of the lower bowel ! The 
excessive activity of all the region invaded 
by the chronic inflammation and the 
local irritation are perpetuated by such 

73 



Intestinal Ills 

" feeding " instead of allayed ! Does it not 
stand to reason that there is already too 
much activity, and that when the irrita- 
bility reaches a certain stage diarrhea or 
looseness of the bowels must result ? 
Twenty grains prescribed once a day to 
nourish an organ (the rectum) six to eight 
inches in length, and from one and a half 
to two and a half inches in diameter ! 
When for two to three feet the lower 
bowel requires nourishment, a suppository 
night and morning is prescribed ! How- 
ever, the new treatment has the merit of 
some consistency between the diagnosis 
and the treatment, notwithstanding both 
are wrong. 

Chronic inflammation of the lower 
bowel causes, as I have pointed out, ex- 
cessive activity and thereby excessive 
nutrition of the tissues involved in the 
morbid process. But sphincter ani gym- 
nastics have been suggested by some one 
who thinks chronic constipation is owing 
to a lack of muscular activity of the lower 
bowels ; and the following reason is given : 

74 



Theories and Medication 

** Physiological experiments have shown 
that rapid voluntary movements of the 
external sphincter ani and the levator ani 
produce very active peristaltic movements 
of the large intestine. This effect is pro- 
duced by the mechanical excitement of 
the plexus myentericus of Auerbach. 
This curious automatic center lies be- 
tween the two muscular coats of the 
intestine and controls the peristaltic 
movements. A person suffering from 
constipation should make powerful move- 
ments of the sphincter ani, and of the 
levator ani, in as rapid succession as pos- 
sible, continuing the exercise for three 
or four minutes or until the muscles are 
fatigued. The time chosen for this exer- 
cise should be either before breakfast or 
an hour after breakfast, according to the 
natural habit of the individual in respect 
to the evacuation of the large intestines." 

There are surgeons who recommend 
stretching and paralyzing the external 
sphincter muscle ; and if they are correct 
in their diagnosis and treatment, those 
who prescribe bile-bouncers, and those who 
prescribe ** nutrient suppositories,'' and 

75 



Intestinal Ills 

those who prescribe the use of rubber 
bougies and candles, should call a conven- 
tion (to meet in, say, New York City) to 
discuss the subject and see if they can- 
not agree to inform the people that con- 
stipation is a sign of, or a factor in, the 
evolution of the human race. Those who 
believe in the gymnastics of man's ears 
and of his sphincter ani and the thera- 
peutic merits of this and of that could 
readily assent to the same glorious con- 
clusion. 

Strange to say, there are in New York 
physicians who are in the habit of insert- 
ing a rubber bougie up their patients' 
rectums two or three times a week for 
the cure of constipation. Some, more 
bold, intrust the bougie performance to 
the patient in order that a daily dilatation 
and stimulation may be kept up until 
"recovery from the disease is effected." 
Others, more original, order the patient 
to insert a candle some six inches in 
length up the rectum and allow it to 
remain ten minutes, with the hope of a 

" rapid cure." 

76 



Theories and Medication 

A Mrs. P ,who had used the candle 

treatment for a great length of time by 
order of her distinguished physician, once 
consulted me. On examination, I found 
her afflicted with atrophic catarrh, chronic 
constipation and anal ulceration, from 
which she had suffered for seven years, 
with but little intermission from pain 
during each day of that entire period. 



77 



CHAPTER X. 

BILIOUSNESS AND BILIOUS ATTACKS. 

COMMONLY the source of chronic 
gastro-intestinal uncleanliness, of 
dyspepsia, of autogenetic poisons and 
auto-infection is inflammatory occlusion 
— more or less permanent or spasmodic — 
of some part of the lower bowel. Many 
years of auto-infection will exhibit such 
diseased symptoms as poor appetite, bad 
digestion, impoverished blood, emaciation, 
etc., accompanied by increased virulence 
of the catarrhal discharge of mucus, 
shreds, etc., and a mind and body sinking 
down to the morbid plane of hysteria, 
hypochondriasis (fear of illness) and neu- 
rasthenia (debility of the nervous system). 
Biliousness and bilious attacks are evi- 
dence that there is a more or less consti- 
pated condition, that there has been an 
occasional imprudence in diet, and that 

78 



Intestinal Foulness 

the dreadful sense of fulness up to the 
end of the tongue is a faithful report of 
the state of affairs. What is it but a full 
foul condition of the digestive canal, a 
complete blockade of the canal from the 
rectum or colon to the stomach, making 
the victim feel that there must be some- 
thing done in the way of cleaning out ? 
He fears that the condition will be fol- 
lowed by fever — not infrequently this is 
the case. Biliousness is usually supposed 
to be occasioned by hindrance to the flow 
of bile, and the conclusion is drawn that 
the liver requires stimulating. This sup- 
position is erroneous and very far from 
pathological veritude, as the liver, like the 
other organs, is merely a secondary suf- 
ferer from the over-eating and the closed 
sewer, 

" The bowels with sullen vapours cloud the brain, 
And bind the spirits in their heavy chain ; 
Howe'er the cause fantastick may appear, 
The effect is real, and the pain severe." 

The bilious attack is usually noticed in 
the morning before food has been taken. 

79 



Intestinal Ills 

The tongue is heavily coated and often so 
foul that it is necessary to scrape it and 
cleanse the mouth of disagreeable taste. 
Eructations, nausea followed by vomiting 
of undigested foul-smelling food, and if 
the vomiting be long-continued, mucus 
from the stomach and bile that had ac- 
cumulated in the duodenum, are sufficient 
evidence that there was no torpidity of 
the liver. There is likewise more or less 
headache, neuralgia, giddiness, hebetude 
(state of mild stupidity), dejection, con- 
fusion of the senses, skin disease, acne 
rosacea (scarlet redness of the nose and 
cheeks), eczema, etc. The headache may- 
be seated in the centre of the brain and 
extend to one or both eyeballs and be 
increased by stooping. Should diarrhea 
occur many of the annoying symptoms 
are likely not to be present. 

In this form of indigestion the bowels 
are often much constipated, which Is usu- 
ally only a more marked symptom of 
chronic constipation. The system now 

and then vigorously rebels against this 

80 



Intestinal Foulness 

chronic condition and an acute bilious 
attack is the evidence of such rebellion. 
The whole digestive canal is involved in 
the rebellion, resulting in the symptoms 
described and also in a morose, petulant 
and querulous temper, accompanied by a 
peculiar, despairing expression, — partly 
due, perhaps, to regrets of having only 
one digestive apparatus, — or in some cases, 
perhaps, of having any. 

That the character and disposition may 
be materially influenced by such a state 
of the bowels is well established. Plato 
believed that ** an infirm constitution is an 
obstacle to virtue, because such persons 
think of nothing but their own wretched 
carcasses " ; for which reason he con- 
tended that ^sculapius should not under- 
take to patch up persons habitually 
complaining, lest they beget children as 
useless as themselves, being persuaded 
that it was an injury both to the commu- 
nity and to the infirm person himself that 
he continue in the world, even though he 

were richer than Midas. 

81—6 



Intestinal Ills 

Acting on this well-known fact, the cele- 
brated Voltaire, in one of the articles in 
his Philosophical Dictionary, has very hu- 
morously ascribed half the evils of Europe 
to the intestinal irritations of the public 
men of the age. 

** Let the person," he adds, '* who may 
wish to ask a favor of a minister, or a 
minister's secretary, or kept mistress, en- 
deavor previously, by all means, to ascer- 
tain whether they go to stool regularly ; 
and, if possible, to approach them after a 
comfortable evacuation, that being a most 
propitious moment, one of the mollia tern- 
pora fandi, when the individual is good- 
humored and pleased with all around 
him." 



82 



CHAPTER XL 

KING LIVER AND BILE-BOUNCERS. 

THE "house not made with hands" — 
the human body — has, like the 
house made with hands, its sewer system, 
which is over twenty-five feet in length. 
To cleanse (?) this wonderfully delicate, 
tortuous and extended passage-way of 
waste material, civilized man knows no 
better than to put in at the top of the 
house, purgatives, cathartics, bile-boun- 
cers, etc., with one hope and purpose in 
view, namely, that these policemen go 
searching, scouring and hustling the in- 
testines in the greatest possible haste, in 
order to remove an obstruction about 
three hundred inches distant from where 
these ** forcers " had entered the intestinal 
sewer. With mercury as a scavenger the 
work is pretty thoroughly done, though 
extra care has to be taken that some of 
83 



Intestinal Ills 

the teeth may remain after the victim sur- 
vives the additional intestinal inflamma- 
tion occasioned by its drastic measures. 

Traits acquired by the father are in- 
herited by the children ; present-day doc- 
tors follow early practitioners ; they still 
pour in many and various decoctions at 
the top of the obstructed sewer of the 
human house to dislodge accumulated 
gases and feces at the bottom. The 
plumber treats the sewer of the house of 
brick and stone more wisely. 

Our fathers partook of laxatives, ca- 
thartics, purgatives, and in consequence 
we start in life with teeth, intestines, 
appendices, out of gear and nervous 
systems on edge. With unconscious stu- 
pidity we continue the fatuous practice. 
The monarch selected to preside over the 
functions of human life was the Liver ; 
and it is only with bated breath that any 
doctor dares question the legitimacy of 
that monarch's claim. The loyal subjects 
of King Liver are ever ready to call out 
" quack," '' charlatan," etc., to those who 

84 



Hereditary Medication 

dare repudiate the sovereignty of the 
Liver. 

So much attention and flirtation does 
the liver receive from the liver-persuaders 
that the pancreas ought to be very jealous. 
The pancreas excretes quite as much fluid 
into the duodenum as its larger neighbor, 
and is, therefore, no mean organ. And 
we need not wonder should we find the 
intestinal glands piqued at our over-atten- 
tion to the liver, as they, in their work at 
the metamorphosis of digested food into 
blood, excrete two or three gallons of fluid 
in a day to the liver's two or three pints ; 
yet witness our medieval solicitude for the 
liver, for one among many organs. The 
liver is located near the upper portion of 
the intestinal canal and connected by a 
tube (the bile duct) to the rest of the ex- 
cursion route. The following liver-per- 
suading knights-errant are prescribed and 
ordered by disciples of Hippocrates, 
Galen, Herodicus, and Iccus, to treat 
with that digestive and eliminative mon- 
arch, the Liver — usually at night-time, 
85 



Intestinal Ills 

that the family may not be disturbed. 
After making as good terms as possible 
they journey on, riotously churning and 
swashing the long, tortuous canal and its 
contents in search of ancient toxic gases 
and feces lodged in the lower bowel. It 
is believed by the prescribers that the 
length of the journey adds dignity to the 
drastic, dredging knights-errant. The 
reader needs no introduction to the po- 
dophyllins, the aloes, the jalaps, the rhu- 
barbs, the mercurys, the croton oils, the 
sennas, the salines, the seltzers, the Car- 
ters, the Beechams, the Websters, the 
Pierces, the Ayers, the Ripans, the War- 
ners, and others belonging to '' The Four 
Hundred " fashionable grenadiers, with 
their credentials and stamp ! 

After these knights-errant have paid 
their respects to King Liver, and ended 
their long, tortuous and eventful journey, 
they depart and leave behind them burn- 
ing and painful abdominal and anal re- 
grets, and then some soothing, stimulating 
and tonic remedies are in order, so that 

86 



Hereditary Medication 

the dredged - though chronically consti- 
pated sufferer and his friends may still 
hope that life will be spared to repeat the 
same nauseating and often painful process 
in a few days or weeks, taking, in the 
meanwhile, milder bile-bouncers daily as a 
reminder to King Liver that the time for 
the knights-errant is coming again. 

Sufferers from chronic constipation re- 
ceive assurances that by the use of these 
** remedies" the anemia will be corrected, 
nutrition and digestion restored, atony of 
the liver and intestines overcome, yellow 
complexion and morbid feeling disappear. 
In short, remove the numerous symptoms 
and *' causes " of toxicity of the body and 
of chronic constipation, and proclaim the 
victory of Powder and Pill ! 

All of us would believe Medicus, the 
son who so abjectly follows in the foot- 
steps of his father, if we could really feel 
the possibility of such a victory ; but the 
protests of our bowels are living witnesses 
against the validity of the medieval prac- 
tice as here described ; and we ask for a 

87 



Intestinal Ills 

modern scientific solution of the fulness 
and foulness within and the fatuity with- 
out. 

I must now apologize to the large class 
of sufferers from chronic constipation for 
hurting their feelings. I know very well 
how seriously they have been compelled to 
regard their trouble, and out of respect for 
their protracted suffering and efforts to get 
relief I should instead have sympathized 
and condoled with them in their dire mis- 
fortune. But we all know and realize 
that there are occasions when we get into 
awful and painful predicaments, and, when 
the whole situation is taken in, it becomes 
comical and ridiculous, so that for a time 
we cannot treat it seriously, even when 
old Chronic Biliousness and the mighty 
knights-errant are having a deadly com- 
bat at our internal and external (and pos- 
sibly infernal) expense. 



88 



CHAPTER XII. 

SEMI-CONSTIPATION AND ITS DANGERS. 

" At least six times in every fleeting day 
Some tribute to the renal functions pay, 
And twice or thrice all alvine calls obey." 

WHAT has been said thus far has 
been based on chronic constipa- 
tion mainly, and the accompanying intes- 
tinal foulness, which condition was shown 
to be so annoying that it compelled the 
sufferer to resort frequently to some more 
or less direct and artificial means for the 
relief of the bowels and the incidental in- 
digestion. It has been further shown that 
many of the chronic cases fail to take on 
the normal amount of flesh or lose what 
flesh they have because of self-poisoning 
(auto-infection), which in turn is the out- 
come of mal-assimilation and mal-nutri- 
tion, and that this consequence must 
occur wherever there is an absorption of 
89 



Intestinal Ills 

waste through a checking or disturbance 
of systemic functions. Emaciation and 
anemia are inevitable in such cases. On 
the other hand, there are cases that have 
such great powers of assimilation and 
elimination that they are able to stand 
the invasion of destructive material, may 
maintain the normal amount of flesh, or 
even take on an abnormal amount, but 
with the invariable accompaniment of 
more or less impoverishment of blood, 
disturbed circulation, indigestion, and the 
usual nervous derangements. The harm- 
ful practice of the lean and the fleshy 
sufferers of resorting to daily medicines — 
cathartics, digestives and tonics — has 
been commented upon. Willingly do 
they squander their money to get relief 
from an ever-present ailment. Cases are 
these of hope deferred that maketh the 
heart sick. 

The primary cause of chronic consti- 
pation, namely, proctitis, has been ex- 
plained, and its many symptoms, as in- 
dicated by the functional disturbances of 

90 



Semi-Constipation 

many or all of the organs of the body, 
enumerated. 

But beside the cases of chronic consti- 
pation — both lean and fat — there are 
many sufferers from auto-infection who 
have only semi-constipation, or partial 
evacuation of the feces daily. Though 
they suffer from the effects of self-poison- 
ing, yet they have no such well-defined 
symptoms of local disease and functional 
disturbance as are always found in those 
who have chronic constipation. Never- 
theless, they have disturbances of prac- 
tically all the functions of the system. 
Believing as they do that the evacuation 
of their bowels is complete, they are at a 
loss to find a cause for the toxemia 
(blood-poisoning), mal-nutrition, debility 
and general atony. The symptoms of 
auto-infection with the semi-constipated 
are as complex as with the severer cases, 
but not so well defined. The most promi- 
nent symptoms are those connected with 
the process of katabolism, that is, of degen- 
eration of the tissues, as indicated by their 

91 



Intestinal Ills 

color and texture. The liver, however, 
is usually held responsible for the bad 
complexion, impaired nutrition, constipa- 
tion and diminished vitality, when really 
the liver is only indirectly concerned, as 
made manifest in the previous articles. 
The seat and source are found to be the 
diseased colon and rectum. 

Dr. Treves says : " The colon being 
the part of the bowel involved in obstruc- 
tion due to fecal accumulation, it may be 
further assumed that the blocking of the 
gut will most usually concern its lower or 
terminal parts. Accumulation of feces is 
most common in the rectum and sigmoid 
flexure, and then in the cecum. Masses 
of feces may block the colon at any point, 
and more particularly at the flexures of 
the bowel. Still, the three common sites 
of the accumulation are those just named. 
The accumulation in the colon may as- 
sume the form of a more or less isolated 
nodule or mass. Thus a considerable 
lump may be found in the cecum or sig- 
moid flexure and the rest of the colon be 
comparatively clear of any gross accumula- 
tion. An isolated lump may even persist 

92 



Semi-Constipation 

after free purgation. On the other hand, 
the accumulation may assume the form 
of several isolated fecal masses. One of 
them may occupy the cecum, another the 
transverse colon, and possibly a third 
the sigmoid flexure. The bowel between 
these masses may appear to be fairly 
clear." 

A number of the exciting causes of 
inflammation of the lower or terminal 
portion of the large intestine have been 
mentioned. It cannot, however, be too 
strongly emphasized that chronic inflam- 
mation of the colon and rectum results 
in hyperkinesis (excessive muscular irrit- 
ability) and contraction of the diseased 
portion invaded, thereby retarding or 
preventing the passage of feces and gases. 
A portion of the daily accumulation of 
feces in the sigmoid may pass through 
the diseased rectum every day, but not 
without increasing the inflammation and 
the spasmodic contraction ; this in time 
inhibits the elimination of the accumulat- 
ing feces, which by undue retention be- 

93 



Intestinal Ills 

come condensed and hardened. Each 
day will then be a repetition of the ab- 
normal and partial effort of the organ 
to accomplish the act of defecation, and 
there will be no thought of the cumulative 
and chronic intoxication (poisoning) of 
the system from the imprisoned feces and 
gases. 

It may be stated without reservation 
that the rectal canal cannot be involved 
in chronic inflammation without involving 
the anal canal, and vice versa. One half 
of civilized people are suffering from 
chronic constipation, and very nearly the 
remainder from semi-constipation. The 
semi-constipated are now under considera- 
tion. The chronic cases are those that 
have a complete impaction of feces in 
the terminal portion of the sigmoid and 
rectum ; the semi-constipated have the 
usual daily partial impaction, that is, an 
incomplete or partially successful evacu- 
ation of the contents of the bowels : the 
incompleteness is due to disease of the 
anal and rectal canals. 

94 



Semi-Constipation 

The anal and rectal canals are made 
up of circular and longitudinal muscular 
bands, which, when invaded by disease, 
lose their proper or normal sensibility 
and cooperative voluntary action. The 
excessive contraction of the circular mus- 
cles closes the calibre or bore of the 
gut, and the excessive contraction of the 
longitudinal muscles shortens the length 
of the gut, thus throwing the mucous 
membrane into abnormal folds which 
increase the depth of the sacculi, or cavi- 
ties, between the fibrous folds. In the 
normal gut the sacculi and bands act 
as valves to control the descent of the 
feces. This valvular arrangement and 
the curvatures of the lower bowels con- 
serve the energy of the involuntary and 
voluntary nerve force until there is a 
sufficient accumulation of feces to excite 
a normal desire for stool ; otherwise the 
feces would rush upon the anus at once 
and occasion much inconvenience. 

Catarrhal inflammation of the mucous 
membrane of the anal canal will sooner 

95 



Intestinal Ills 

or later penetrate the muscular structure 
of that canal, causing an abnormal irrita- 
bility and contraction of the sphincter 
ani and the other tissues composing its 
structure. The contraction of the anal 
tissues becomes more permanent as the 
muscular tissues of the structure become 
cohered or bound together by the process 
of inflammation. 

The normal stimulus and sensation that 
should precede the act of defecation are 
perverted or destroyed by the excessively 
irritable contraction of the sphincter ani, 
which contraction is occasioned by the 
presence of feces and gases just above 
the seat of inflammation, that is, above 
the anal canal or at the lower end of the 
rectum. As the bulk of feces and gases 
lodged at this point increases, the anal 
contraction becomes firmer in grip, and 
as a consequence permits no hint of the 
imprisoned contents until the accumulat- 
ing bulk is beyond the power of tolera- 
tion by the organ. Daily a portion of 

the lodged feces, or some new addition 

96 



Semi-Constipation 

to the mass, passes the anal canal, but 
the attending irritation or contraction of 
the muscles prevents any further exit 
of the imprisoned rectal contents. 



97—7 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE ETIOLOGY OF THE MOST COMMON FORM 
OF DIARRHEA, I. E., EXCESSIVE INTES- 
TINAL PERISTALSIS. 

IF you are interested to know why a 
certain plant does not flourish in the 
temperature and light to which it has been 
accustomed, you investigate the soil — the 
source of nourishment — and thus deter- 
mine why the downy or velvety appear- 
ance has left the flower ; why the leaves 
are yellow, dry or falling ; why the stems 
are withering. Even the most ignorant 
person knows that the symptoms the plant 
presents did not bring about the unsuita- 
bleness of the soil ; that, on the contrary, 
the condition of the soil is responsible for 
the plant's present state. Would it not 
be unwisdom, therefore, to treat directly 
the symptoms of decay, instead of treat- 
ing the soil, or changing it ? Just so 



Intestinal Absorption 

misguided is the judgment of the physician 
who prescribes physic or tonics in the case 
of a person having a foul intestinal canal, 
a condition destructive of the absorbent 
and the excretory glands. But members 
of county medical societies do just such 
foolish things. Notwithstanding their 
prescriptions, a point will be reached by 
the patient where the restoration of his 
millions of small rootlets, or organic feed- 
ers, will be impossible, and like a decaying 
plant in unfavorable soil he gradually de- 
cays or withers, here and there, until 
finally he topples over before he knows it, 
probably long before maturity has been 
reached. 

It is not generally known among lay- 
men, nor sufficiently appreciated among 
physicians, that the mass of fecal matter 
normally evacuated from the bowels comes 
mainly from the blood ; and that this mass 
is not, as it is usually supposed to be, the 
residue of the food that has. been left un- 
assimilated. Embedded in the mucous 
membrane of the colon are tubular glands 

'^ L..fC. 



Intestinal Ills 

under the control of the nervous system. 
When these glands become unduly ex- 
cited through local inflammation and irri- 
tation, the normal flow from them is 
increased to such an extent that a rapid 
waste of precious tissue occurs throughout 
the system, and the vital force — which had 
taken perhaps years to store — is depleted 
to the point of exhaustion, sometimes even 
in a few hours. Almost every one has 
had some experience of exhaustion fol- 
lowing diarrhea. 

The increased flow of blood to the 
mucous membrane of the colon furth- 
ers this extraordinary secretion by the 
glands. As has been pointed out, inflam- 
mation, septic poisoning, intestinal foul- 
ness, or retained feces, act as irritants on 
the mucous membranes, thereby drawing 
the blood to the colon where it is excreted 
and exhaustion follows. The great dan- 
ger in diarrhea, therefore, is the rapid 
depletion of the vital force. But when 
the small intestines are affected the con- 
sequences may be still more deplorable. 

lOO 



Intestinal Absorption 

Then the unassimilated food is hurried 
along too quickly for absorption and the 
body receives but little nourishment to re- 
store its powers. Thus another draught 
is made upon the sufferer's reservoir of 
vitality, and hence additional exhaustion. 
But this waste of tissue, loss of vital force, 
non-assimilation and non-supply, are not 
so grave as the positive danger of the 
permanent destruction of the millions 
of small absorbing vessels (villi) of the 
small intestine by a continuance of this 
abnormal irritation. Of course the secre- 
tory and excretory glands of the colon 
also suffer, and we then have costive- 
ness resulting from lack of absorption 
and excretion. 

Abnormal irritability of the bowels is 
necessarily involved in the inflammatory 
process known as proctitis and colitis. 
Increase this irritability to a certain point 
and diarrhea takes the place of constipa- 
tion — a much more alarming symptom. 
Diarrhea is more alarmino^ because the 
intensified local activity of the excretory 

lOI 



Intestinal Ills 

glands of the bowels brings on, as has 
been said, a general exhaustion of the 
vital powers. 

The severity of diarrheal symptoms is 
much increased by the character and abun- 
dance of bacterial poisons. Bacteria find 
a ready medium in fetid feces, and are 
absorbed by the excited glands to the 
degree in which these glands have time 
and power for absorption. Of course the 
extent and character of the intestinal irri- 
tation have a good deal to do with the 
severity of the diarrheal symptoms. This 
irritation is not infrequently intensified by 
a catarrhal process, or by a lesion of an 
ulcerative nature. All these forms of 
irritation bring on '' excessive intestinal 
peristalsis" — which, accordingly, is our 
definition of diarrhea. The normal peri- 
staltic action of the intestines propels the 
nutritive as well as the effete material 
through the canal at a rate that allows of 
both proper absorption and timely elimi- 
nation. But when excessive peristalsis 
occurs, neither absorption nor elimination 

102 



Intestinal Absorption 

will be normal or suited to the require- 
ments of the system. 

Undigested foodstuffs may become an 
irritant, or increase, as is usually the case, 
the established irritation, and thus bring 
on an acute attack of diarrhea. The im- 
mediate consequence of the acute attack 
may indeed be, and often is, comparatively 
beneficial, inasmuch as the diarrhea re- 
moves the undigested material that occa- 
sioned the irritation. When this removal 
is accomplished, the diarrhea usually sub- 
sides without treatment. This is the case, 
however, only when the patient has com- 
mitted an infrequent error in diet. When 
such errors are habitual the burden on the 
glands of the intestinal mucous membrane 
becomes intolerable, and the chronic in- 
flammation once established has a ten- 
dency to proceed from bad to worse. It 
will then be observed that digestion be- 
comes more and more impaired. In such 
a case diarrhea will no longer serve a good 
end, but will on the contrary debilitate 

the system. A change to better dietetic 
103 



Intestinal Ills 

habits will then aid, but will not suf- 
fice for cure. Only treatment and time 
will restore the inflamed parts to a healthy- 
tone. When, however, the digestive tract 
is invaded by any of the many forms of 
bacteria, treatment will avail little and 
serious consequences follow rapidly. 

Too much cannot be said or done to 
secure intestinal cleanliness in infancy, 
childhood and maturity. Mothers and 
nurses cannot give this subject too much 
thought and care, since the welfare of 
future generations depends largely upon 
intestinal cleanliness, in view of the rich 
and racy life of our hothouse civilization. 
We are a people poisoned through consti- 
pation and diarrhea : two affections that 
derange more lives than all other patho- 
logical conditions together. Banish ali- 
mentary uncleanliness and you take most 
of the poisons from the human race — 
poisons that stunt the body and blunt 
the mind. 

The soul of man should dwell in a 

palace, not in a pest-house ; in a human 

104 



Intestinal Absorption 

temple, velvety, lined with down, inside 
and out ; in which there are hundreds of 
millions of lilliputian trappings, fittings 
and articles of furniture, to carry on the 
minute and finer functions and chemistry 
of the soul. The very multitude of the 
fine equipments that decorate the tem- 
ple give it that beautiful blending of color 
and form which its coating has when in 
normal condition. They adorn this body- 
house with health, and supply it with the 
rich red wine of joy. 

The blood is dependent for its richness 
not only on the digestive fluids, but also 
on the proper eliminating powers of the 
system. If you would avoid premature 
decay you must not neglect the reservoir 
of vitality, the alimentary canal, but see 
to it that it be kept clean and pure. Then 
will the elixir of life spring from an almost 
inexhaustible fountain. To recur to our 
plant analogy. Keep the soil in your 
own vegetable garden sweet, for intestinal 
cleanliness corresponds to soil fitness. 
Purity of the stomach and bowels is more 
105 



Intestinal Ills 

important than quantity or quality of food. 
That defecation should occur normally 
two or three times in twenty-four hours is 
more important than that three meals 
should be eaten within that time. The 
conveniences for eating and drinking are 
on every hand, but oh, how few, inacces- 
sible, miserably constructed, and poorly 
cared for, are the toilet cabinets for the 
accommodation of the gourmand ! Sus- 
penders and silk hats mark the progress 
of our outer refinement ; toilet cabinets 
and flushing appliances, of our inner. 
When the inner refinement comes we 
shall live longer and be healthier. 



io6 



CHAPTER XIV. 

BALLOONING OF THE RECTUM. 

TO make plainer what has been said of 
the rectal and anal tubes or canals, 
consider the sleeve of an infant's gown. 
This sleeve well represents the rectal tube, 
the wrist-band the anal orifice and tube — 
an inch or more long. Think of the sleeve 
or rectal tube as being made up of four 
layers of material or membranes ; and 
counting from the inside of the sleeve or 
rectum there are (i) the mucous layer ; 
(2) the areolar layer ; (3) the muscular 
layer ; (4) the serous layer. 

The muscular membrane is itself com- 
posed of two layers, and may be said to 
form the framework of the rectum. One 
layer is composed of circular muscular 
fibres, and the other of longitudinal muscu- 
lar fibres. In a similar manner you could 

make a sleeve out of fine circular rubber 

107 



Intestinal Ills 

bands ; then bind them together by rub- 
ber strings extending lengthwise of the 
sleeve. With the circular bands the bore 
of the sleeve may be contracted or wid- 
ened ; and with the longitudinal bands 
the length may be shortened or extended. 
Just so with the corresponding muscular 
membranes of the rectum, in their normal 
and abnormal conditions. Outside of the 
longitudinal muscular 'bands are the se- 
rous and areolar layers, the latter covering 
the lower half of the rectum. 

As you look inside the incomplete 
model of the rectum, or rather sleeve, 
you observe circular muscular bands or 
fibres which it is necessary to cover with 
soft spongy or fatty substance in whose 
meshes are nerves, blood-vessels, etc. 
This is called the areolar layer or coat. 
One more layer or coat upon this — the 
mucous coat — completes the structure. 
This latter possesses the power of ac- 
commodating itself to the distention and 
contraction of the muscular tube. The 
mucous membrane is thrown into folds 

io8 



Structure of Rectum 

and columns which serve as valves to in- 
hibit the undue descent of the feces, thus 
assisting the mucous membrane in per- 
forming its office. 

The length of the rectum varies in dif- 
ferent persons, six inches is the average 
length. It is divided into two parts. The 
upper part is a little more than three 
inches long ; beginning in front of the 
third sacral vertebra and extending down 
to the end or tip of the coccyx. In shape 
this part conforms to the curve of the 
sacrum and the coccyx, to which it is at- 
tached behind. The lower part of the 
rectum is a little shorter than the upper 
part, and begins at the tip of the coccyx 
and extends down with the same curve as 
the upper part, terminating at the upper 
portion of the anal canal. 

Returning to the sleeve again ; the por- 
tion of it from the shoulder to the elbow 
illustrates the upper part of the rectum 
when partially covered with a serous coat 
on the side opposite the bore (the out- 
side). From the elbow to the wrist-band 
109 



Intestinal Ills 

illustrates the lower part of the rectum, 
when covered on the outside with an 
areolar coat. 

The wrist-band of the sleeve will repre- 
sent the anal tube if drawn into a pucker 
and turned slightly backward from the 
direction of the sleeve of which it is a 
continuation. 

The muscular fibres described above 
likewise enter into the formation of the 
anal canal or orifice. This orifice is closed 
by two strong muscles that lie close to- 
gether and are called internal and ex- 
ternal sphincters, which are abundantly 
supplied with nerves and blood-vessels 
whose branches extend to the neighboring 
organs. 

Nine persons in every ten have more 
or less chronic inflammation of the mucous 
membrane of the anus and rectum. In 
time the areolar and muscular coats be- 
come invaded by the morbid process, and 
this increases the irritability of the tissues 
of the organ. 

The change from the normal functions 

no 



Structure of Rectum 

of the anal membranes is slow, and the 
symptoms are not well marked and are 
consequently ignored for years owing to 
inexpertness in detecting an invading seri- 
ous disease, until the time comes when 
the suffering can no longer be tolerated 
by the victim of the neglect. 

The result of disease to muscular tissue 
is contraction of its fibres, and the contrac- 
tions become more painful as the disease 
increases. Accompanying the inflamma- 
tion, there is a more or less inflammatory 
product secreted between muscular fibres 
that " glues " them together in their con- 
tracted state. And as the anal and rectal 
tubes are made up of round muscular fi- 
bres, it is not hard to see how the bore 
of the canal can be lessened by the slow 
binding together of its fibres in the con- 
tracted state. The fact is that when the 
anal structure is invaded by inflammation, 
there is more or less stricture of the canal 
and of the orifice. 

Recalling the sleeve illustration, and 

how the wrist-band was puckered and 
III 



Intestinal Ills 

bent back a trifle so that the contents of 
the sleeve would not pass out so easily, 
suppose you now pucker the wrist-band 
rather tightly, and suppose there is a 
forcible descent of sand in the sleeve, the 
natural result would be a bulging out of 
the lower portion of the sleeve just above 
the wrist-band, or place of undue constric- 
tion. If the abnormally constricted con- 
dition of the anal orifice has been growing 
from bad to worse for years, the locality 
immediately above the anal canal will 
become dilated or cavernous (caused by 
retained feces or gases), which cavity is 
called ballooning of the rectum. When 
a speculum is introduced into the rectum 
(as shown on page 14 of pamphlet How 
to Become Strong), and through it a 
bent probe is inserted to determine the 
depth of the dilatation or abnormal cavity, 
it is as if one were poking inside of an 
inflated balloon : hence the name. 

Anatomists describe the rectum as ter- 
minating in a forward pouch, which is 
close to the prostate gland in the male 



Structure of Rectum 

and the lower part of the vagina in the 
female. In some cases there may be such 
a slight pouch, due to the anal canal not 
following the direction of the rectum, and 
slightly turning backward ; but in most 
cases such a normal pouch is not percep- 
tible or observed through the speculum. 
The small pouch sometimes found on the 
anterior wall of the rectum I have thought 
due to a very acute inflammation on the 
verge of forming abscess, which often 
occurs in the triangular space. (See 4 
in diagram in pamphlet cited above.) 

Immediately above the sphincter mus- 
cles on the posterior wall of the rectum 
the greatest dilatation is found (as shown 
by the bent probe), and extends on each 
side with less depth about the anterior 
wall of the rectum. 

The greater portion of the lower part 
of the rectum, which part is about three 
inches long, is usually involved in the 
dilatation or ballooning. Often the upper 
half or more of the anal canal is also 
dilated with the rectum, leaving the 

H3— 8 



Intestinal Ills 

sphincter muscles quite bare of fatty tis- 
sue, with anal length of a quarter of an 
inch or less. 

Your attention was called to a sleeve 
containing sand, and the bulging or dila- 
tation above the puckered wrist-band that 
was an inch or more broad. Now sup- 
pose there were two strong rubber rings 
at the lower end of the wrist-band, whose 
power of resistance to pressure is much 
greater than the tissues above them form- 
ing the wrist-band. Naturally, the tissues 
which form the upper part of the wrist- 
band would dilate the same as the termi- 
nal portion of the sleeve just above the 
wrist-band. 

Similar changes in structure or forma- 
tion take place in diseases of the anal and 
rectal canals which result in ballooning 
of the rectum ; and two frail constricted 
sphincter muscles are left to guard this 
balloon, filled, as it so often is, with feces 
and gas. 

Chronic inflammation, that results in 
contraction of the circular muscular fibres, 

114 



Structure of Rectum 

will sooner or later constrict the gut so 
that it will lose its normal power to ex- 
pand without causing pain. The anal 
canal may be said to be strictured to 
the degree in which it is unable to dilate 
normally, and this strictured condition 
usually grows from bad to worse. 

The first symptom of rectal disease is 
usually an affection of the anus, which 
affection occasions an inhibition, that is, 
a reluctant permission for the passage of 
the feces ; and this inhibition results, con- 
sequently, in some degree of constipation. 
And this constipation reacts more or less 
on the peristaltic action of the bowels and 
in time defeats the function of peristalsis. 
All this will react on the inflammatory 
processes at the anus, which originally en- 
gendered the constipation. The narrow 
and contracted strait or canal through 
which the feces must pass, gives a tape- 
like shape to the stools. 

The anal and rectal mucous membrane 
is of a firm and tough structure, similar 
to the integument at the bottom of a 

P5 



Intestinal Ills 

boy's heel. After many years' observa- 
tion of diseases of the anus and rectum I 
am forced to conclude that as a rule in- 
flammation exists in the tissues twenty or 
more years before the severe symptoms, 
such as piles, fissure, anal pockets, pruri- 
tus, hypertrophy, atrophy, tabs, abscesses, 
and fistula, are sufificiently annoying to 
compel the sufferer to seek medical aid. I 
believe it to be of as much importance to 
give early attention to disease of the anus 
and rectum as to teeth and eyes, or even 
more. 



Il6 



CHAPTER XV. 

BALLOONING OF THE RECTUM — CONTINUED. 

IN the last chapter a description was 
given of the anatomy of the anus and 
rectum ; and it was shown how a chronic 
inflammatory process involving these or- 
gans develops stricture in the parts in- 
vaded ; and it was shown how a partial 
stricture of the anal canal results in bal- 
looning or dilatation of the lower part of 
the rectum. The primary cause of all 
the symptoms of rectal disease is chronic 
inflammation (proctitis) involving the 
whole structure of the anal tubes and in 
a few cases the sigmoid flexure as well. 

Perhaps the first marked symptom of 
disease of the rectum is constipation, 
semi-constipation or of chronic character. 
The function of the anus and rectum 
being disturbed by the inflammation, the 
117 



Intestinal Ills 

fecal mass is unduly retained and its 
moisture is absorbed by the system. This 
accounts for the condensed and hardened 
fecal mass in isolated lumps of various 
proportions. A hard-formed stool is ab- 
normal, and is evidence of auto-infection. 
When three-fourths of the normal fecal 
mass has been re-absorbed by the system, 
does it not stand to reason that the blood 
and tissues have been poisoned by their 
own waste products (auto - intoxication) 
and that anemia, emaciation and local 
disturbances of other organs of the body 
are symptoms of such intoxication ? 

The loading and blocking of the sig- 
moid flexure come from too much activity 
or irritability, due to inflammation, of the 
upper half of the rectal tube, A conse- 
quence of this excessive sensitiveness is 
a diminished or perverted normal stimu- 
lus, notice or desire, that the act of defe- 
cation should take place. 

The victim of proctitis simply forms a 
habit of daily soliciting an evacuation, 
though the normal invitation or desire to 

ii8 



Abnormal Cavities 

stool may be entirely absent, and the 
evacuation in such cases is attended with 
more or less delay and straining effort 
to accomplish partially or wholly the 
expulsion of the more or less inspissated 
feces. 

As the extreme sensitiveness of the 
inflamed upper half of the rectum offers 
resistance to the passage of the fecal 
contents of the sigmoid flexure ; so, in a 
somewhat similar manner, the inflamed 
anal tube, in its more or less constricted 
state, prevents the passage of feces and 
gases as they approach the terminal part 
of the rectum. As a consequence, the 
feces and gas deposit and lodge at this 
latter location, producing in so doing the 
abnormal cavity called ballooning of the 
rectum, so often found just above the anal 
tube. 

The greatest depth of the dilated pouch 
is on the posterior wall of the rectum, 
or just in front of the tip of the coccyx. 
In some cases the pouch measures two 
and a half inches in depth at the back 

119 



Intestinal Ills 

and gradually diminishes in depth on each 
side as you near the anterior wall of the 
rectum. Often the upper end of the 
anal canal is higher than the depressed 
circumference of the spacious cavity that 
almost surrounds it. The irritable orifice 
of the cavity will invariably compel a 
quantity of liquids and feces to lodge in 
the cavity as a permanent cesspool, allow- 
ing the absorbent vessels to absorb as 
much as they can by incessant work. The 
height or length of this abnormal cone- 
shaped rectal cavity is from two to three 
inches, involving usually the lower half of 
the rectum. The anal canal frequently 
becomes shortened by the dilating process 
to a quarter of an inch, leaving two frail, 
irritable muscles at the vent, to guard the 
rectal cavity. And fortunate are these 
two thin, sore, contracted muscles, and 
the possessor of them, if they escape the 
surgeon's barbarous notion of operating 
on them. 

If the medical butcher has operated on 
them, you will find an anal canal open to 



Abnormal Cavities 

such an extent that two fingers can be 
inserted without distending the tissues in 
the least. And when the victim of bal- 
looning of the rectum and ignorant op- 
eration makes further complaint to the 
surgeon of the aches and pains, he is 
consoled by being informed that the end 
of the spine will have to be removed. 
Irreparable damage done and no aid at 
all received ! It is a pity such ignorance 
on the subject should exist in the medical 
profession in this city. 

The abnormal cavity, so difficult to 
empty properly owing to its depth and 
diseased outlet, is seldom free from gases, 
feces and liquids. Daily evacuations will 
not empty this cavity, nor will cathartics 
or diarrhea. A permanent cesspool of 
poisons is this, where all forms of poison- 
ous germs are propagated, and infect the 
system by absorption. No use to take 
medicines for your poor blood, bad com- 
plexion and horrid feelings, as they will 
not cleanse the augean stable so long 
neglected. No use to journey to other 



Intestinal Ills 

localities for health so long as you carry- 
so formidable a foe to health with you. 

The mucous membrane in the chronic 
state of the disease presents a rather dry, 
indolent and bluish appearance, except 
that here and there the tissues show more 
activity of the disease, more especially so 
over the anal region, due to harsher dis- 
turbance during the act of stoollng. In 
the subacute or acute stage of the in- 
flammatory process there Is more general 
redness and puffiness of the mucous mem- 
brane, or a swollen condition with in- 
creased discharge of mucus and perhaps 
some blood. 

There is a heavy, uncomfortable feel- 
ing, with more or less soreness and pain, 
especially after evacuation of the feces. 
If a fissure or anal ulcer is present the 
pain is in proportion to its size and the 
general aggravation of all the diseased 
parts. Itching or pruritus about the anus 
may accompany the trouble to a very 
annoying extent, being an evidence that 
the anal pockets are becoming much dis- 

122 



Abnormal Cavities 

eased. The partially constricted and ir- 
ritable sphincter muscles become excited 
during the act of stooling and react on 
the anal grip or contraction, making it 
more intense. This latter condition may 
shut off the flow of blood in a local vein ; 
and the blood becoming coagulated forms 
a painful bluish grape-like tumor at the 
external opening of the anus. 

Abscesses may form at some portion 
of the diseased gut and result in an ex- 
ternal fistula. 

Piles may co-exist in some cases of 
ballooning, but are usually not annoying. 

It is the local anal or external annoyan- 
ces that compel the sufferer to seek medi- 
cal advice and aid, and he learns that 
the troubles Ov^mplained of are only symp- 
toms of a chronic disease, therefore easily 
removed without harsh treatment while 
the cause is being properly cured. 

It is very fortunate for the sufferer 

from ballooning of the rectum to have in 

or near the anal canal those painful hints 

or symptoms of a very grave and long 
123 



Intestinal Ills 

existing disease whose constitutional symp- 
toms were well marked but attributed to 
other causes, especially to disease of the 
liver — an organ of so much solicitude that 
the poor liver-worshipping patient ought 
to receive more gracious response from it. 

In every case of chronic proctitis, or 
inflammation of the anus and rectum, the 
sigmoid flexure must be more or less 
dilated, as the upper part of the rectum 
is very irritable and contracted and in- 
hibits the feces from passing beyond the 
sigmoid ; but this irritability and contrac- 
tion of the rectum, as a rule, is not nearly 
so severe as that of the anal canal, whose 
orifice is closed by very strong sphincter 
muscles. 

Such being the pathological change in 

the sigmoid flexure and especially in the 

lower portion of the rectum, as described 

in these two chapters, who, with ordinary 

intelligence and an idea of cleanliness, 

would take or prescribe remedies to move 

the bowels, if it were possible to cleanse 

the foul capacious cavities with water ? 

124 



Abnormal Cavities 

We know that they can be thus cleansed, 
and that it can be easily accomplished 
with benefit to the diseased canals. 

After the system has absorbed 75 
per cent of the fecal mass, a ** remedy" 
is taken to excite a flow of watery ex- 
cretions into the bowels, of which a 
portion will be retained in the colon, and 
especially the ballooned cavities, and re- 
absorbed; and every day the objection- 
able practice is repeated without any 
thought of the harm being done. 

The flushing of the rectum, sigmoid 
flexure and colon with water is not a 
cure-all, but it is one of the means of 
treating a grave chronic disease, a dis- 
ease insidious and far-reaching in its poi- 
sonous effects on the human organism. 



125 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE USUAL DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF 
BOWEL TROUBLES WRONG. 

HERODOTUS tells us that among 
certain tribes when a man fell sick 
his next-door neighbor did not wait for 
him to become thin but killed him at 
once, lest by the loss of his adipose his 
flesh might be rendered less appetizing. 

But alas ! in this age of constipation 
and piles, of self-generated poisons and 
self-infection, how changed is the custom ! 
Our next-door neighbor, the doctor, waits 
till we are really thin, and then begins to 
feed and grow fat on our ills ! In our 
day, through the continuous process of 
self-poisoning we take on no flesh from 
puny, peaked childhood, or we insidiously 
lose what little flesh we had, and when 

our bones are well exposed, become 

126 



Emaciation and Anemia 

alarmed, realize that we are sick, rush 
for the doctor, and dispossess ourselves 
of our spare cash. 

Very frequently, as stated in the first 
chapter, auto-infection begins in infancy 
and slowly but steadily progresses, but it 
may not be before adult age is . reached 
and one or more organs are seriously dis- 
eased that it becomes apparent to all. 
The vital round of the alternate building- 
up and breaking-down of the system has 
been going on unceasingly during these 
years of increasing infection, but prema- 
turely the balance between up and down 
is lost in favor of down ; the building- 
up process becoming feebler, slower, 
and the breaking-down process quicker, 
easier. What can the inevitable out- 
come be but emaciation and anemia, 
and all their attendant suffering and con- 
sequences ? It is the superabundance of 
vitality in the growing child that retards 
(inhibits) the morbid changes going on in 
the blood and tissues of the system ; but 

the process is all the more insidious by 
127 



Intestinal Ills 

being thus restrained, and its very sub- 
tlety and stealth beguile us all into 
fancied security : parents, friends, phy- 
sicians — all are deceived. 

As stated in a previous chapter, the 
first unwelcome visitor, in infancy, is in- 
flammation of the integument and mucous 
membrane of the anal orifice, invited by 
the uncleanliness involved in the use of 
diapers ; and this visitor takes up its resi- 
dence slowly along several inches of the 
lower bowel. Its first symptoms are likely 
to be constipation, flatulency, colic, indi- 
gestion, bacterial and other poisons, occa- 
sionally diarrhea, and the usual general 
disturbance of the system as above de- 
tailed. It is admitted by all authors that 
inflammation of the anus, rectum, etc., is 
by far the most common disease that af- 
flicts mankind at all ages ; and I main- 
tain that the natural result of such 
inflammation is a more or less extensive 
occlusion of the lower bowel, which in 
turn involves an undue retention of the 
feces, and thus we have the foul intestinal 

123 



Emaciation and Anemia 

canal and stomach called gastric and in- 
testinal indigestion. 

The wrong treatment of constipation, 
diarrhea, indigestion and auto-intoxica- 
tion up to the present time has been due 
to improper diagnosis. Writers on these 
subjects speak of them as causes when 
they are merely symptoms. And the 
remedies for these '* causes " are even 
more numerous. Mistaken diagnosis on 
the one hand, measured doses on the other, 
and there you have the scientific doctor ! 
The primary cause, inflammation, like the 
original spark applied to dry shavings, 
sets up morbid changes In the various 
parts of the digestive canal and the other 
organs of the body, and these '' set up " 
or established changes are properly sec- 
ondary or derivative causes accompanied 
by their own symptoms. The primary 
disease and symptoms may exist for five, 
ten, twenty or more years before any 
pronounced secondary or derivative dis- 
eases and their symptoms occur or are 

noticeable to a sufficiently marked degree. 
129—9 



Intestinal Ills 

The chronic character of the malady, 
and the complication of primary with 
secondary diseases and their symptoms, 
have thoroughly disconcerted the doctors. 
Hence the many ''causes" assigned for 
indigestion, constipation, etc., and the 
many kinds of remedies prescribed with 
the one sure result, failure ; and hence, 
also, not a few of the self- and drug-intoxi- 
cated ones dubbed, or actually developed 
into, hypochondriacs. Diagnosis wrong, 
treatment wrong, failure certain, and the 
foulness of the intestinal canal continued ! 
This is the experience and testimony of 
the many, many sufferers from the most 
common malady that afflicts humanity 
from infancy to old age, and which will 
continue to afflict the great majority until 
it is properly understood and treated. 

When a sewer of a town is obstructed, 
the most sensible plan is to begin the in- 
vestigation at the outlet and then proceed 
up, section after section, to trace the ob- 
stacle that had occasioned the accumula- 
tion of debris. When the waste-pipes of 

130 



Emaciation and Anemia 

a house are clogged, we do not expect the 
plumber to go to the top of the building 
and poke substances down the pipe to dis- 
lodge the unduly retained material some 
twenty-five feet or more away. Nor 
would we believe him if he informed 
us that the sewer-gas and overflow of 
waste in the house were the cause of the 
constipated condition of the drain. But 
just this is what the doctor declares con- 
cerning our sewer ; just this is what he 
does when he doses it with laxatives, 
cathartics, purgatives. Such is the treat- 
ment we receive when we rush to the 
doctor, or such the treatment we give our- 
selves. The poor, sensitive, inflamed 
canal Is desecrated on all hands, though 
part of a house not made with hands — a 
house that should be a home for the soul 
of man. 



131 



CHAPTER XVII. 

COSTIVENESS. 

THE words constipation, obstipation 
and costlveness are often employed 
as If of exactly similar meaning, but It Is 
well to let each stand for a particular con- 
dition. Obstipation Implies that the canal 
of the Intestine Is stopped up or closed. 
Constipation carries the Idea that the canal 
is completely filled up with refuse matter. 
In the normal condition the Intestine Is 
divided by transverse bulges or valves or 
dams Into a number of separate segments, 
the entire arrangement having the effect of 
preventing too rapid descent of the feces. 
These folds within the canal may be- 
come too much narrowed by disease and 
thus prevent the movement of the mat- 
ters Inside ; this Is obstipation. Consti- 
pation, stuffing of the gut, may be the 

132 



Stages of Auto-Intoxication 

result of neglecting the call of nature, 
and after a time the ability to recognize 
and answer it is lost ; or it may result 
from inflammation which itself comes from 
the bad habit mentioned. 

The author prefers to use the term cos- 
tiveness for the general debased condition 
of the system from auto-intoxication de- 
pending upon proctitis and similar condi- 
tions of the intestinal tract. And it must 
be remembered that the same patient may 
have two or more of these conditions at 
the same time. Constipation, obstipation 
and diarrhea may alternate through the 
progress of the case. 

We would expect people suffering from 
constipation or obstipation to pass as 
fairly well people for a time, but the 
same is not true of patients having the 
other condition, costiveness. As we may 
speak of the stages of a disease like con- 
sumption, so we may speak of these three 
conditions as different stages of one affec- 
tion, the worst being costiveness with its 
progressive self-poisoning by the pro- 
133 



Intestinal Ills 

ducts of intestinal decomposition. Early 
In the case the system may pass these 
poisons out of the body with comparative 
ease, by way of the lungs, skin and kid- 
neys. In time the second stage begins 
to make Itself apparent, vitality becomes 
less and less, calling for a greater variety 
of medicines to correct the condition, as 
in the second stage of consumption, and 
also to arrest the progress of emaciation 
and anemia or anemic obesity. 

The third stage of auto-intoxication is 
a most unhappy one. The impoverished 
tissues offer a most favorable soil for 
the development of diseased conditions. 
These three stages which are clear to the 
experienced eye of the physician may to 
the patient seem to be indistinguishable, 
the one from the other ; and It must not 
be forgotten that the three conditions do 
not mean simply that a smaller or larger 
part of the Intestine Is clogged by its con- 
tents, but that the whole system Is in- 
volved as well. 

It cannot indeed be otherwise with the 

134 



Stages of Auto-Intoxication 

rapid circulation of the blood, nor need it 
excite wonder that such patients are thin 
and debilitated by the deadening of the 
powers of absorption, assimilation and 
elimination. 

As a rule the many thin and puny in- 
fants and children of either sex, with 
bony points well exposed under a tightly 
drawn skin, which latter is clay-colored 
and pimply ; children with headache and 
languor, without healthy interest in either 
studies or play ; — these are the victims of 
intestinal poisoning as described. If they 
have inherited a spare habit of body from 
their parents such bodily ills will mani- 
fest themselves the more quickly. They 
ought to be fat and hearty as are the 
young of animals, but alas many are not ! 
When the young animal is spare, a few 
days of rest with good diet will put flesh 
on it, demonstrating that the state of the 
bowels and the powers of assimilation 
are intact. Why does not man take on 
flesh in a similar way ? 

If the intelligent animals could talk, 

135 



Intestinal Ills 

they would undoubtedly make all manner 
of fun of the intestinal canals which they 
see walking about, with a little flesh here 
and there seemingly by accident, and a 
skin which is clay-colored or jaundiced, 
anemic or flabby, the owner of it all poi- 
soning himself by decomposition in his 
intestines ! 



136 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

INFLAMMATION. 

IF we desire to get a general idea of the 
changes that occur in an organ when 
it becomes inflamed, we must first have a 
knowledge of the normal structure of 
that organ, even though that knowledge 
be but superficial. Taking the intestines, 
for example, we see under the micro- 
scope that they are composed of layers 
of different tissues, called connective, 
epithelial, muscle, and nerve tissue ; the 
first two forming a large part of the 
structure. 

In the connective (and fatty) tissues 
a great many blood-vessels are found 
(varying in different parts of the organ), 
the existence of which is necessary for the 
production of inflammation, since at the 
very outset of the process, a discharge 
(or exudation) takes place from these 
137 



Intestinal Ills 

blood-vessels, accompanied by changes or 
degenerations in the other kinds of tissue. 

The process of inflammation is com- 
monly associated with symptoms of heat, 
redness, swelling and pain, in greater or 
less degree, combined with which a change 
in the function of the organ is soon 
noticed. Micro-organisms are considered 
the primary cause of inflammation in 
many or even in most cases in which 
mechanical or chemical influences may 
undoubtedly be responsible primarily ; and 
then again, each of these causes may be 
either external — that is, may originate 
from the outside world — or internal, that 
is, may be produced in and by the body 
itself. 

The first pronounced change occurring 
in an organ under inflammation is an 
increase in the rapidity with which the 
blood circulates through the vessels — 
a so-called hyperemia — which soon gives 
place to a diminution (stasis) in the 
current together with an exudation from 
the blood-vessels ; the latter is due to 

138 



Inflammatory Changes 

changes in the structure of their walls. 
This exudation soon occasions a cloudi- 
ness of the connective tissues and at the 
same time a desquamation (shedding in 
scales) of the epithelia (cells of the thin 
mucous surface). An irritation of the 
nerves also takes place. 

The varieties of inflammation can be 
best apprehended by considering the dif- 
ferent characters of the exudation. The 
exudation may be watery (called serous) 
or dense, the latter either fibrinous or 
albuminous. With a serous exudation 
there is swelling of the connective tissue 
and a desquamation of epithelia — the 
latter usually slight in character — which 
constitutes what is known as a catarrh ; 
while with a fibrinous or albuminous 
exudation there is usually more or less 
destruction of the tissue itself, when, 
for example, we have ** croup " or 
'* diphtheria." 

When the changes in the epithelia are 
only slight and secondary, it is spoken of 
as an interstitial (lying between) inflam- 
139 



Intestinal Ills 

mation, which strictly speaking denotes 
confined to connective tissue, and is 
therefore a term not entirely correct. 
When the inflammation of the epithelia 
is severe and may lead to their partial 
destruction, it is called a parenchymatous 
inflammation ; that is, one involving the 
soft cellular substance. There is still 
another variety, the suppurative, which is 
the most intense of all, and indicates the 
production of an abscess and the entire 
destruction of the tissue implicated. 

Beside these general grades of inflam- 
mation there are special sorts produced 
by specific micro-organisms. In all general 
inflammation we may expect to find such 
organisms, which in most cases belong 
to the class of micrococci, such as staphy- 
lococci and streptococci. In gonorrhea we 
have a special organism called the ''gono- 
coccus " ; while in tuberculosis — a variety 
of inflammation in which the blood-vessels 
are completely destroyed and a change or 
degeneration called " cheesy " is produced, 

leading to the production of a tubercle — 

140 



Inflammatory Changes 

a rod-like bacillus is invariably found, the 
well-known and unfortunately too common 
tubercle bacillus. In syphilis — another 
special variety of inflammation — a specific 
micro-organism is also surely present, but 
of this microbe science has not as yet dis- 
covered the exact nature. 

The question of the origin of tumors 
or new growths is also an extremely im- 
portant one ; and it is undoubtedly true 
that many tumors arise where there was 
a previous inflammation, this being espe- 
cially the case in tumors of the rectum. 
Why such a growth should arise in 
some cases and not in others is as yet 
unknown, though microbes are held by 
many to play an important role. 

When an inflammation has lasted for 

such a length of time that it has become 

chronic, a new tissue will sooner or later 

be produced in varying amount ; and this 

newly formed fibrous connective tissue 

may entirely replace previous normal 

structures. Through the exudation and 

consequent changes in the normal tissue 
141 



Intestinal Ills 

a large amount of mucus Is at first secreted, 
but this secretion becomes less and less 
marked the more the inflammation causes 
a desquamation of the epithelia. Pro- 
nounced desquamation with new forma- 
tion of connective tissue and no fresh 
exudation will, sooner or later, occasion 
dryness — this dryness being sometimes 
very pronounced. The longer the inflam- 
mation lasts, the severer it will be ; and 
the greater the amount of tissue it attacks, 
the more will the normal tissue be de- 
stroyed and replaced by a new connective 
tissue. A partial destruction will cause 
shrinkage of the organ (so-called *' cirrho- 
sis ") ; while a complete destruction of 
certain parts will result in what is known 
as '' atrophy " (a wasting away of normal 
tissue). In atrophy the blood-vessels as 
well as the original connective and epi- 
thelial tissue are destroyed; while the 
newly formed tissue leads to hypertrophy 
(excessive over-growth) of other portions 
of the organ. Such a hypertrophy must 

not be confounded with an induration that 

142 



Inflammatory Changes 

may be present later, or even at the very 
commencement of an inflammation, due 
to modification of the blood-vessels and 
surrounding tissues. 

Chronic inflammation, sooner or later, 
leads to secondary degenerations, that is, 
new products of the protoplasm, the most 
common of which is fatty degeneration. 
In this form fat granules and globules 
arise, which are at first minute, later on 
larger ; these in certain organs, such as the 
liver, may become so pronounced as to 
entirely replace the original tissue. An- 
other degeneration — which, however, is 
found only in chronic systemic disturb- 
ances, such as tuberculosis or syphilis — is 
the waxy or amyloid degeneration, a pecul- 
iar chemical change the exact nature of 
which is unknown. 

Various chemical changes are by no 
means uncommon. 

An important question is the decision 
as to the length of time an inflammation 
has lasted ; and this at best can be deter- 
mined only approximately and after long 
143 



Intestinal Ills 

experience. The older the inflammation, 
the more the connective tissue has de- 
veloped ; this connective tissue is at first 
soft, but soon becomes more and more 
dense ; the result being a varying degree of 
hardness of the organs. 

Again, secondary degenerations are 
more pronounced in long-standing pro- 
cesses. In comparatively fresh cases 
blood-vessels are still more or less numer- 
ous and the tissue appears red, while in 
older cases these vessels become com- 
pletely obliterated, and the tissues take 
on a white, glistening color, becoming 
harder and denser as the years advance. 
If a process has lasted twenty or thirty 
years, the changes to the eye and touch are 
practically the same as after forty or sixty 
years. 

The changes, as here described, will be 
the same upon any mucous membrane ; 
and in the large intestine can be easily 
studied and are perfectly characteristic. 

Rarely does an infant escape repeated 

attacks of inflammation of the integument 

144 



Inflammatory Changes 

of the anus and the mucous membrane of 
the anal canal. The inflamed integument 
is treated and healed, but no attention is 
given to the inflamed mucous membrane 
so that the inflammation in time becomes 
chronic, involving the rectum also. Should 
the infant be so fortunate as to escape in- 
flammation (proctitis) of these organs 
during the wearing of the diaper, there 
are numerous other exciting causes of in- 
flammation which it will not be likely to 
escape, hence the almost universal symp- 
tom of constipation among civilized peor 
pie ; and hence later in life you hear the 
familiar expression, ** I have a touch of 
the piles," and many other complaints of 
bowel ailments that are usually the out- 
come of that deplorable inflammation. 

I have endeavored to make clear the 
fact that inflammation destroys normal 
tissues and blood-vessels, and that the 
newly formed tissue is cicatricial in charac- 
ter, that is poor in cells and vessels, with 
a tendency to contraction which of course 
lessens the bore of the gut. When the 

i45_io 



Intestinal Ills 

hypertrophy or thickening is extensive 
the appearance of the mucous membrane 
suggests the addition of one or more 
thicknesses of a chamois skin added to 
the inner surface of the anal and rectal 
canals. The hypertrophied or newly 
formed tissue may be limited to the 
rectum, leaving the anal tissues compar- 
atively exempt from the superabundant 
cicatricial formation ; or the hypertro- 
phy may involve, to quite a degree, only 
the anal tissues and the integument 
around the anal orifice. The added con- 
nective tissue about the anus forms the 
skin into tabs, or into a circle of elongated 
integument around the orifice, with a 
mucous lining. These hypertrophied tabs 
or folds, like pruritus ani, are symptoms 
of proctitis. 

Proctitis (the inflammation of the anal 
and rectal canals) is the most common 
and serious disease that afflicts man. The 
system is not only poisoned by bacteria 
and filth through proctitis, but proctitis is 

also the cause of the many annoying and 

146 



Inflammatory Changes 

painful local symptoms, such as hypertro- 
phy, piles, abscess, fistula, cancer, polypus, 
fissure, pruritus, etc. 

When the subject of proctitis is better 
understood by laymen they will see to it 
that the rectums of children receive an 
examination before the children are six 
years old, and thus obviate the necessity 
of dosing them with all sorts of medicine 
that follow improper diagnosis. 



147 



CHAPTER XIX. 

PROCTITIS AND PILES. 

PILES (hemorrhoids) are not the result 
of either the normal or abnormal 
growth of the tissues of the anal and rectal 
mucous membrane. They are developed 
by the combination of pathological and 
physiological conditions : (i) chronic in- 
flammation or proctitis ; (2) stricture of 
the anal canal and lower portion of the 
rectum, which may be spasmodic, or more 
or less permanent, which stricture pinches 
or constricts the canal, thereby inhibiting 
the circulation of the blood ; (3) the press- 
ure or straining effort during the act of 
defecation, occasioned by the constricted 
canal, which effort brings on greater local 
congestion and constriction of the tissues. 
Pile formations are a symptom of 
chronic proctitis of fifteen, twenty or more 

years duration. Proctitis (inflammation 

148 



Proctitis and Piles 

of the anus or rectum) and periproctitis 
(inflammation of the connective tissue 
about the rectum) are by no means un- 
common inflammatory processes. The 
mucous membrane like the skin is liable 
to injury or poisons and especially so at 
the orifices of the body. Let inflammation 
set in : if it be not cured at once, it will 
invade the canal, especially a canal like the 
rectum ; in which case it will establish it- 
self throughout from six to ten inches of its 
length, sometimes taking in the sigmoid 
flexure and even the colon. Just how 
long chronic inflammation confines itself 
to the mucous membrane before invading 
the areolar or lace-like connective tissue 
and the muscular tissue of the organ, I am 
unable to state. 

The first symptom or indication that all 
the tissues are involved in the inflam- 
matory process will most naturally be 
constipation. You have observed that 
inflammation of a portion of the skin on 
the arm, trunk or leg does not disturb 

the muscular movements of the regfion 
149 



Intestinal Ills 

involved, except when the muscles under- 
neath the skin are affected also, as in the 
case of deep burns where the movements 
are very much disturbed by the irritability, 
soreness and contraction of the diseased 
muscles. There is also an adhesive pro- 
duct excreted from the inflamed tissue 
that binds the muscular fibres of an organ 
together, and you have contraction of the 
organ and its usefulness impaired. Now, as 
this is precisely the pathological or dis- 
eased condition which chronic cases of 
proctitis and periproctitis present, you will 
readily understand how spasmodic and 
partial stricture or contraction occurs in 
the sore muscles (circular and longitudinal) 
of the anus and rectum. The length and 
the bore of the canal are diminished, and 
thus the circulation of the blood arrested 
by the pressure or gripping of the con- 
tracted muscles. This congestion of the 
blood brings about an anatomical change 
in the structure of the mucous membrane, 
which we call piles : a mere symptom of 
inflammation. 

150 



Proctitis and Piles 

Medical authors have defined inflam- 
mation as follows : '* (i) A series of 
changes constituting the local reaction to 
injury ; (2) a series of changes that con- 
stitute the local attempt at repair of actual 
or referred injury of a part ; (3) a series 
of local phenomena that are developed in 
consequence of primary lesion of the 
tissues and that tend to heal these lesions ; 
(4) the method by which an organism at- 
tempts to render inert the noxious ele- 
ments introduced from without or arising 
within it ; (5) a disturbance of the mech- 
anism of nutrition of an organ or tissue, 
affecting the structures concerned in its 
function." 

These effects or changes give rise to 
the five cardinal symptoms of inflamma- 
tion : pain, heat, redness, swelling and 
impaired function (dolor, calor, rubor, 
tumor, functio Isesa). 

Proctitis may exist many years before 

the pain and heat become noticeable or 

are complained of by the victim of this 

insidious disease, the bodily symptoms of 

151 



Intestinal Ills 

which are well expressed before the local 
trouble demands attention and treatment. 
The sufferer from proctitis is unable to 
detect the change from a normal color of 
the mucous membrane (a light, muddy 
gray) to an extremely abnormal one (a 
fiery redness). The swelling or puffiness 
of the mucous membrane becomes more 
marked as repeated attacks of subacute 
and acute inflammation occur, from year 
to year, over a period of twenty or more 
years. During all this time impairment 
of the function and structure of the anal 
and rectal canals is incessantly going on. 
The nervous and muscular spasmodic con- 
traction of the diseased anus and rectum, 
which in time become more or less per- 
manently constricted, steadily increases 
the stagnation and engorgement of blood 
in the dilated arteries, veins, arterioles, 
venous rootlets and capillaries. All of the 
circulatory vessels, especially the smaller 
ones, become enlarged, varicose ; and an 
aggregation of varicosed vessels forms 
a tumor called a pile or hemorrhoid. 

152 



Proctitis and Piles 

Inflammation interferes with nutrition of 
the anal and rectal tissues, rendering them 
friable or weak and easily broken ; whence 
the bleeding and painful fissure or the 
anal ulcer, which so often are the outcome 
of proctitis and an accompaniment of 
piles. 

As already stated, piles are one of the 
symptoms of proctitis, and all cases of 
piles involve more or less irritability and 
contraction of the anal canal and the ter- 
minal portion of the rectum through 
which the fecal matter is forced. All the 
muscular ability of the rectum, assisted by 
straining effort of the abdominal muscles, 
is concentrated upon the feces to force it 
through the constricted portion of the 
lower bowel. The force exerted not only 
develops pile tumors, but carries out with 
the feces those tumors that had reached 
considerable proportions ; thus the frail 
diseased mucous membrane is torn, and 
another symptom added to a chronic dis- 
ease. Observation for over twenty years 
has convinced me that chronic proctitis 
153 



Intestinal Ills 

usually exists fifteen, twenty or more 
years before piles are developed (if de- 
veloped at all), from daily pressure on 
the inflamed, congested, dilated, vari- 
cose, friable blood-vessels and surround- 
ing tissue. 

Piles are easily and quickly cured with- 
out any annoyance to the sufferer. 
Chronic proctitis may be cured, but not 
quickly, as time is required to undo dam- 
age to tissues so long invaded by inflam- 
matory process. Any one that allows a 
continuance of " a touch of the piles," 
as the expression is, and omits to take 
proper treatment as soon as this ''touch" 
is felt, simply invites or takes chances of 
some form of cancer of the lower bowel 
later in life. 

All other forms of disease of the lower 
bowel will yield to treatment satisfactory 
to physician and patient, but I am sorry to 
say cancer cases are numerous, and up to 
the present time we have no cure for this 
dreadful disease. If you value health, if 
you desire to avoid future suffering and 

154 



Proctitis and Piles 

disease, be sure that the lower bowel is 
free from inflammation, for with such free- 
dom you will escape the many symptoms 
of proctitis described In my treatise on 
diseases of the anus and rectum. 



155 



CHAPTER XX. 

PRURITUS OR ITCHING OF THE ANUS. 

ONE of the many symptoms of proc- 
titis is the existence of anal chan- 
nels from which an inflammatory product 
exudes through the skin, causing painful 
itching of the skin around the anal margin 
and not infrequently around the buttocks 
to the distance of three, six or even more 
inches from the anal orifice. An aggra- 
vated form of pruritus ani is much more 
trying to physical endurance than severe 
pain. Sometimes the torture is so great 
that a portion of the body will be covered 
with cold perspiration. 

The natural color of the integument 
about the anus slowly changes to a dull 
whitish appearance. As the pathological 
process goes on, the skin becomes thick- 
ened and parchment-like. In exceptional 
cases the mucous membrane of the anal 

156 



Pruritus Ani 

canal becomes toughened and hardened 
like cardboard. As a consequence there 
is a degree of inertia in the muscular ac- 
tion of the parts affected. 

The inflamed, thickened and indurated 
integument near the anus takes on the 
form of folds, wrinkles or rugae, of more 
or less prominence ; but as these extend 
out over the buttocks they become more 
and more obliterated, leaving no clue to the 
direction of the channel which leads from 
the site of inflammation ; which latter, how- 
ever, may be learned from the itching, or 
from the burning sensation with some 
soreness, over portions of their length. 

During a practice extending over twenty 
years, I have found only two cases in 
which one of these channels was the seat of 
a slight abscess. It is not usual that pus 
formations occur in these inflammatory 
channels. At the margin of the opening 
from the rectum to the anal tube are five 
or six small crescent-shaped loops, semi- 
lunar valves, separated by vertical ridges 
(the anal columns). Naturally in chronic 

157 



Intestinal Ills 

proctitis the zone of tissue just above the 
sphincter muscles and slightly within their 
grasp at the upper portion of the anal 
tube, would suffer greatly from the morbid 
process, owing to the abnormal constriction 
of the tissues and to the incidental pressure 
and injury, from time to time, as the stool 
passes the diseased region. Just under 
the mucous membrane covering the anal 
columns and semilunar valves is the fatty 
tissue forming a bed upon which the 
mucous membrane rests. It is sufficiently 
lax to permit considerable movement of 
the mucous membrane on the muscular 
coat beneath it. The frail, fatty, loose 
connective tissue in the grasp of the 
sphincter muscles would be the first to 
become impaired by inflammatory pro- 
cess, the product of which finds its way 
down and out under the mucous mem- 
brane of the anal canal and integument 
of the buttocks for quite a distance, occa- 
sioning itching, pain, soreness or burning 
in the integument covering the course 
of the channel. 

158 



Pruritus Ani 

Here we have the pathological reason 
why local remedies to the outer surface of 
the skin will not cure pruritus ani. Also 
the reason why dieting is useless, and 
why internal remedies are worthless for 
the cure of anal itching ; for the itching, 
as shown, is the result of an inflamma- 
tory product in the channels under the 
skin of the victim, numbering from five 
to twenty. Over fifteen years ago I dis- 
covered the cause of the great suffer- 
ing from painful itching at the anus and 
contiguous tissues and have been able to 
give instant relief, and in a little time 
permanent cure, in every case treated 
since then. It is well for those who have 
an occasional attack of pruritus ani to take 
treatment at once for proctitis proper, 
as well as for this symptom, itching- 
resulting from these channels. The 
proctitis, if neglected, will only be the 
means of increasing the size, length and 
number of these channels. In chronic, sub- 
acute and acute stages of proctitis there 
is more or less secretion of inflammatory 
159 



Intestinal Ills 

product ; and often the sufferer is able to 
discover, in dejections from the bowels, a 
yellow syrup-like fluid, of the consistency 
of glycerine or white of Qgg, at times 
streaked with blood and purulent matter 
indicating ulceration. 

Should the proctitis be cured and these 
channels remain, there may be sufficient in- 
flammatory product in the channels to ooze 
through the skin to the outer surface, and 
excite itching ; or if a portion of the chan- 
nel escapes treatment, the same symptom 
may be expected at any time. 

The size and length of these channels are 
best determined by making a small open- 
ing into them through the integument, 
then inserting a silver probe in both di- 
rections, determining the distance under 
the mucous membrane of the anal tube 
and the distance under the skin of the 
buttocks. 

In some cases a few of these channels 
open into the rectum just above the in- 
ternal sphincter muscles and become filled 
with water during the use of the enema 

i6o 



Pruritus Ani 

taken to move and cleanse the bowels. 
As a rule, one end of the channel is under 
the mucous membrane of the terminal 
portion of the rectum, and the other 
somewhere under the skin of the anus or 
of the buttocks. 

I presume that no disease of the human 
body has been assigned more reasons for 
its existence, with the exception of con- 
stipation, than that mere symptom of a 
disease, anal pruritus ; a symptom which 
** Regulars " call a '' disease," but " Irreg- 
ulars " know to be only a symptom. It is 
very amusing to observe how they fill 
pages in their text-books, guessing, won- 
dering and paying their respects to the 
imaginary quack doctors, ''who are reap- 
ing a harvest of ill-gotten gain." The 
usual medical writer is a compound of ig- 
norance, egoism and garrulity, and this 
may account for the great crop of reasons 
for *' diseases." However, the writers In 
question are not so much to blame after 
all, even though they do belong to county 
medical societies ; for how can they well 

i6i— " 



Intestinal Ills 

resist the literary Itch with which most of 
them are afflicted ? Let them keep on 
writing while victims of pruritus ani wear 
out their weary lives scratching through 
weary nights — nights that extend Into 
years, until permanent invalidism seems 
to be their destiny and end. Who, verily, 
are the medical quacks ? I will leave It 
to a jury composed of those who have 
been cured of pruritus ani. 

I have yet to meet the first case of 
pruritus ani that Is without the presence 
of the channels above described. There 
may be cases of Itching at the anus 
and these channels entirely absent, but I 
have yet to discover such a case and I very 
much doubt If It exists. I am happy to 
inform the reader that all cases of pruritus 
ani are cured with ease and without any 
restrictions as to diet, and without inter- 
nal remedies for the blood, nervous sys- 
tem, etc., given by doctors that guess. 
The causes are easily discovered ; the 
symptoms are easily found and removed ; 

the victim of pruritus ani may therefore 

162 



Pruritus Ani 

escape from the labyrinth of error of the 
medical authors and practitioners who 
ought to be educators instead of *' obsta- 
cators " — obstacles and stumbling-blocks 
in medical progress. 



163 



CHAPTER XXI. 

ABSCESS AND FISTULA. 

IN our daily affairs we take thought for 
the future and reason from cause to 
effect. We observe, anticipate, expect 
and suspect. This is a commendable 
practice, for it is the one that is most 
likely to lead to success. Can we not 
acquire a similar attitude and habit in 
regard to our health ? Habit is sub-con- 
scious attention. Can we not give sub- 
conscious attention to the little details of 
such bodily functions as are liable to get 
out of order ? Can we not by a settled 
habit, that is, by the formation of a second 
nature, assure our vital success, on which 
the continuance of the enjoyment of life 
so much depends ? If some part of a 
complicated machine gets out of order it 
must be repaired at once or damage may 

result to other parts of it. Again, if our 

164 



Abscess and Fistula 

business accounts will not balance, the 
error must be found and corrected at 
once, or the evidence of it will annoy us 
sooner or later. Why should not such 
prompt care and attention be given to 
the human mechanism, to the economy of 
vital functions ? It is not often that we 
neglect disease of the hands, head, face 
or neck because the exposure of such dis- 
ease to public gaze might embarrass us ; 
but alas for the portion of the body out 
of sight, especially for the internal organs, 
when they fail to perform their functions 
normally. Most of us allow the mechan- 
ism of the human body to shift as best it 
can and as long as it can, should it hap- 
pen to become ungeared, ignoring the 
frequent warnings which the ever increas- 
ing morbid changes and wreckage give 
us. And then we surrender and succumb. 
What else can we do ? Our vital credit- 
ors file their claims in the hiorh court of 
Vital Bankruptcy. What poor business 
policy, and what a wretched tenant ! For 
fifteen or more years we may have had 
165 



Intestinal Ills 

warning '* touches of the piles," sometimes 
accompanied with Indigestion, constipa- 
tion, diarrhea and Insidious auto-Infectlon 
and occasionally with local symptoms In 
and around the anal canal and Its external 
orifice ; these to an Intelligent tenant 
should have been evidence of proctitis, or 
worse, of periproctitis — Inflammation of 
the connective tissue of the rectal tube. 
What have we done ? We have disre- 
garded the warnings of our ungeared, dis- 
ordered machine, or else we have merely 
tinkered with It. The human factory re- 
ceives less attention than does the com- 
mercial. Soon, all too soon, the silver 
cord Is loosed and the golden bowl broken, 
and just before that event, frightened, but 
too late, we do a little more tinkering un- 
der a doctor's direction, and spill the con- 
tents — of the golden bowl with which 
we were so careless — spill It Into another 
world, to begin our folly over again ! 

Do you know that this occasional 
'' touch of the piles " over a period of 
many years, and all that it involves, Is a 

i66 



Abscess and Fistula 

precursor and an invitation to the de- 
velopment of that deadly enemy, Cancer 

— a worse disaster than financial ruin ? 
It is my duty to utter a warning here. 
Only one making a specialty of the dis- 
eases of the alimentary canal is aware of 
the frequency of the occurrence of cancer 
in the lower bowel resulting from chronic 
inflammatory process, induration, etc. I 
have been, again and again, shocked and 
alarmed at the reckless neglect that has 
brought on this as yet incurable disease 

— cancer. 

These remarks apply well to what I 
have to say on Abscess and Fistula 
at the terminal portion of the intestinal 
canal. It is the old, old story of 
being ** touched by the piles for many 
years," and neglect, ending in dread 
and despair at the necessity of being 
bored full of holes by pus seeking an out- 
let. The victim wonders at the spread of 
the local trouble, and that an opening for 
the pus canals has frequently to be made 
three to sixteen inches away from the 
167 



Intestinal Ills 

seat of the abscess. In a former chapter 
the subject of proctitis and piles was gone 
into, and some idea given of the invasion 
of inflammation in the rectal and anal 
tissues. 

In exceptional cases the exciting cause 
of anal and rectal abscess and fistula, or 
of abscess and fistula of the buttocks, 
may be a traumatic injury or accident, 
produced, say, by a blow or a fall bruising 
the tissues, or by sharp, hard substances 
— such as pieces of bone or nutshell — 
from within the canal, lacerating it. But 
wounds of this character are very in- 
frequent compared with chronic inflam- 
mation (proctitis) as the exciting cause. 
There are several varieties of proctitis re- 
cognized as the exciting cause of abscess 
and fistula, namely, traumatic, dysenteric, 
diphtheritic, gonorrheal, catarrhal, etc. 
The reader should not only pardon me, but 
should be grateful if by adding another 
name to the list I point out the most 
common cause, namely, diaper-itic proc- 
titis. As pointed out in the first chapter 

i68 



Abscess and Fistula 

or two, the improper use of the diaper 
will evidence its deplorable result when 
the period of manhood or womanhood is 
reached, by some of the many symptoms 
of proctitis. 

Proctitis may be considered as acute, 
subacute or chronic according to the du- 
ration of the process ; or as atrophic or 
hypertrophic from the structural changes 
induced. But no matter about the cause 
and character of the proctitis, the ques- 
tion is, Have you inflamed anal and rectal 
canals ? If you have, then the very an- 
noying symptom, abscess or fistula, is lia- 
ble to occur any day. Can you afTord to 
take the chances ? 

Just under the mucous membrane of 
the anus and rectum there is a layer of 
loose, fatty, connective tissue, called areo- 
lar tissue. When it is invaded by inflam- 
mation, abscess and fistula may occur. 
On the outside of the rectal wall, at the 
terminal portion, there is also much loose, 
fatty (areolar) tissue filling the ischio- 
rectal fossa, which is very prone to suppu- 
169 



Intestinal Ills 

ration, and inflammation here is called 
periproctitis. This is the most common 
and serious seat and source of the septic 
process, which process is usually the 
proximate cause of death after capital 
surgical operations upon the rectum. Be- 
side the abundance of fatty tissue — 
whose function Is to serve as a cushion 
to the rectum at Its terminal portion i nd 
at the back and sides of the wall — there 
Is a triangular space In front of the 
rectum containing fatty areolar tissue, 
which space Is often the location of a 
pus cavity. Pus, like all fluids, follows 
the path of least resistance. The pro- 
gress of Imprisoned pus may take weeks, 
months and years before an abnormal 
communication between the abscess and 
the external portion of the body Is com- 
pleted. The Imprisoned contents of the 
abscess cavity and the pus canal or fistula 
often give rise to much annoyance before 
finding an outlet. There will be pain In 
the muscles of the buttocks, called myal- 
gia ; and pain at the end of the spine, 

170 



Abscess and Fistula 

called coccygodynla. For this latter pain 
do not, I pray you, as is so often done, 
have your spine removed by the too ready 
surgeon. No need of it at all. You 
might just as sensibly have the muscles 
cut out for myalgia. Pus in fistulous 
channels may burrow for several years 
through the muscular and connective 
tissue structures before finally forming an 
external opening through the integument ; 
although its nearness to the surface is 
frequently marked by a localized puffiness 
and inflammation, which, however, may 
disappear for a time without forming an 
external opening. This condition of af- 
fairs results in periodical attacks of 
coccygodynia, myalgia and neuralgia of 
the buttocks and lower extremities. 

The important question with the victim 
of abscess and fistula is, '* How did I get 
it ? I don't care for the various and nu- 
merous names you give to these fistulas : 
what I should like to know is. How does 
it come about that I, an apparently heal- 
thy person, have such a nasty disease ? " 
171 



Intestinal Ills 

Simply years of neglect, is my answer. 
Neglect is due sometimes, and perhaps 
generally, to ignorance of the thing neg- 
lected. The laity can in large measure 
blame the medical profession for it, and 
especially those surgeons who have long 
made a specialty of the treatment of anal 
and rectal diseases. 



172 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE ORIGIN AND USE OF THE ENEMA. 

PLINY recorded the fact that *'the 
use of clysters or enemata was first 
taught by the stork, which may be ob- 
served to inject water into its bowels by 
means of its long beak." The British 
Medical Journal, reviewing the newly 
published Storia della Farmacia, says 
that Frederigo Kernot describes in it the 
invention of the enema apparatus, which 
he looks upon as an epoch in pharmacy 
as important as the discovery of America 
in the history of human civilization. The 
glory of the invention of this instrument, 
so beneficial to suffering mankind, belongs 
to an Italian, Gatenaria, whose name 
ought to find a modest place together 
with Columbus, Galileo, Gioja and other 
eminent and illustrious Italians. He was 
a compatriot of Columbus and pro- 
173 



Intestinal Ills 

fessor at Pavia, where he died in 1496, 
after having spent several years in per- 
fecting his instrument. The enema ap- 
paratus may be justly named the queen of 
the world, as it has reigned without a 
rival for three hundred years over the 
whole continent, besides Brazil and Amer- 
ica. The enema came into use soon after 
the invention of the apparatus itself. 
Bouvard, physician to Louis XIII, ap- 
plied two hundred and twenty enemata to 
this monarch in the course of six months. 
In the first years of Louis XIV it became 
the fashion of the day. Ladies took 
three or four a day to keep a fresh com- 
plexion, and the dandies used as many for 
a white skin. E nemata were perfumed with 
orange, angelica, bergamot and roses, and 
Mr. Kernot exclaims enthusiastically, '' O 
se tornasse questa moda I " (Oh, that this 
fashion would return !). The medical pro- 
fession at first hailed the invention with 
delight, but soon found the application 
infra dig., and handed it over to the 
pharmacist ; but shameful invectives, sar- 

174 



Occasional Cleansing 

casms and epigrams, hurled at those who 
exercised the humble duty of applying the 
apparatus, made them at last resign it to 
barbers and hospital attendants. (^Vear 
Book of Therapeutics, Wood, 1872.) 

'' The history of the warm bath," says 
Dr. Paris, *' presents another curious in- 
stance of the vicissitudes to which the 
reputation of our valuable resources is so 
universally exposed. That which for so 
many ages was esteemed the greatest 
luxury in health, and the most efficacious 
remedy in disease, fell into total disrepute 
in the reign of Augustus, for no other 
reason than because Antonius Musa had 
cured the Emperor of a dangerous mal- 
ady by the use of the cold bath. The 
most frigid water that could be procured 
was in consequence recommended on ev- 
ery occasion. . . . This practice, how- 
ever, was doomed but to an ephemeral 
popularity, for, although it restored the 
Emperor to health, it shortly afterward 
killed his nephew and son-in-law Mar- 
cellus, an event which at once deprived 
the remedy of its credit and the physician 
of his popularity. 
175 



Intestinal Ills 

** That the warm and not the cold bath 
was esteemed by the ancient Greeks for 
its invigorating properties may be inferred 
from a dialogue of Aristophanes, in which 
one of the characters says, ' I think none 
of the sons of the gods ever exceeded 
Hercules in bodily and mental force.' 
Upon which the other asks, ' Where 
didst thou ever see a cold bath dedi- 
cated to Hercules ?' 

'* Thus there exists a fashion in medicine, 
as in the other affairs of life, regulated by 
the caprice and supported by the author- 
ity of a few leading practitioners, which 
has been frequently the occasion of dis- 
missing from practice valuable medicines 
and of substituting others less certain in 
their effects and more questionable in 
their nature. As years and fashion re- 
volve, so have these neglected remedies, 
each in its turn, risen again into favor 
and notice, whilst old receipts, like old 
almanacs, are abandoned until the period 
may arrive that will once more adjust 
them to the spirit and fashion of the 
times." (J. A. Paris, Pharmacologia, p. 
31, New York, 1825.) 

'' A story told of Voltaire," says Dr. 
Arthur Leared, " well illustrates both the 



Occasional Cleansing 

evil effects of constipation and the ad- 
vantage of using the enema. The great 
philosopher was one day so miserable and 
dejected that he told a friend he had re- 
solved to hang himself. His friend called 
the next morning to ascertain whether 
the resolve had been or was intended to 
be carried out. But Voltaire only re- 
plied, with a smile, * I have been well 
washed out this morning.'" (Op. cit, p. 
200.) 

For those suffering from chronic intes- 
tinal uncleanliness or constipation, an oc- 
casional intestinal wash-out, or bath. Is 
quite as satisfactory as an '' occasional " 
external bath or the '' occasional " use of 
a cathartic medicine. If there Is a neces- 
sity for cleansing and purifying the bow- 
els at all, why not do It properly and 
systematically until the condition that 
made the artificial cleansing necessary Is 
removed ? Who would tolerate the clean- 
ing of dining-room, kitchen, dairy and 
other utensils in domestic use only when 
they became so foul that they could not 

be endured any longer without great 

177—12 



Intestinal Ills 

annoyance ? Away with the " occasional " 
cleansing habit for either external or in- 
ternal bodily cleanliness ! There are per- 
sistent causes for internal uncleanliness, 
for the tardy action of the bowels, which 
require regular periods for cleansing until 
cure is effected. 

It is estimated that food taken into the 
stomach will reach the colon in five hours. 
For nineteen hours the sewage waste of 
the body is gradually becoming a fetid 
pool before an outlet is furnished it by 
the one-movement-a-day people ; and O 
ye gods of health ! how many of us there 
are that have n't even one movement a 
day ! For a few hours the absorbent 
cells of the colon will try to extract as 
much of the nutritious residue as the sys- 
tem calls for, but along with it a lot of 
poisonous filth will be absorbed. The 
call of the system for nourishment should 
be fully answered by the small intestines. 
Savages have four or five movements a 
day, and we certainly should not have 
less than three. People of refined senti- 

178 



Occasional Cleansing 

ments will, at such a disclosure, bestir 
themselves to better things. 

Water, when properly applied, is the 
only remedy that meets the physiological 
and pathological requirements of the 
chronically constipated. By its use the 
diseased, spasmodically contracted muscu- 
lar tube is simply dilated, and the impris- 
oned feces and gases above are permitted 
to pass down and through the temporarily 
occluded section of the diseased bowels, 
the patient will have the consciousness of 
neatly accomplishing an imperative re- 
quirement, and the satisfaction which 
cleanliness entails. 



179 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

HOW OFTEN SHOULD AN ENEMA BE TAKEN? 

THE following lines will show you how 
advertising is done in medical jour- 
nals. '* Dear Doctor : The spring being 
the time for cathartics, I beg to call your 
attention to R.L. (yellow label), ..." 

Why is spring a special time for cathar- 
tics ? Has the intestinal canal been ob- 
structed like the Erie Canal during the 
winter months ? With as much propriety 
they might advertise : '' Dear Doctor : 
The spring being the time for bathing, I 
beg to call your attention to antiseptic 
bath soap, ..." 

I suppose that a sort of annual cleansing 
of the alimentary canal is suggested so 
that the summer heat may be less objec- 
tionable, as it warms up foul bodies. How- 
ever, attention once a year is better than 

none at all, as said of the Augean stables. 

1 80 



Enema Not Harmful 

Not long ago I had a conversation with 
the proprietor of a bath cabinet company, 
who had given some thought to hygienic 
measures, and he considered it essential 
to flush the bowels with water once a 
month to secure ** proper cleanliness." 
This opinion is quite in advance of the 
annual cathartic cleansing. Some people 
may have acquired the habit of a monthly 
cathartic ''cleansing"; others wash out 
once a week, and a few once a day : all of 
them act from their idea of cleanliness, as 
they would perform the ablution of their 
hands, face and body. There are some hy- 
gienic students who have adopted the idea 
of '' cleansing " the bowels with warm water 
once or twice a week, which practice is 
quite in advance of the annual or monthly 
attention. All have reasons for the man- 
ner and time they adopt to '' cleanse " the 
bowels ; and yet they find that they are 
not cleansed properly, as they still have 
spells of biliousness and misery. They 
wonder at themselves for being so rash 
and bold as to take an enema twice a 



Intestinal Ills 

week, and begin to feel that they have 
reached a point of positive danger. 

One anxiety Is that they will weaken 
the bowels by the use of a pint or a quart 
of water once a month, or once or twice a 
week. Another Is that they will wash 
away the mucus, leaving the membrane of 
the bowels as dry as an oven. Another 
is that they will form the dreadful habit 
of using the enemata. What a pity to 
form such a cleanly habit ! Sorry for 
them ! 

Another stubborn objection is, that 
flushing of the bowels Is not natural. 
These foolish objections and fears can be 
attributed to medical authors who belong 
to medical societies. It Is very strange 
how these authors adopt so many wrong 
notions about the physiology and pathol- 
ogy of the bowels. What an erroneous 
and absurd Idea that the enema should 
weaken the bowels ! Why should It ? 
Exercise ought to strengthen muscular 
tissue ; and what could give the bowels 

more gentle muscular exercise than the 

182 



Enema Not Harmful 

proper use of them ? Has the reader 
any idea of the amount of water requisite 
for the distention of an elastic muscular 
tube, about five feet in length and two 
and a half inches in diameter in the widest 
part? The large intestine is capable of 
great distention, as is frequently demon- 
strated in fecal impaction described in 
previous chapters. The quantity is named 
in gallons. The amount of water usually 
injected at one time — from one pint to 
two quarts — can hardly be said to distend 
the bowels at all. I wish the enemata 
did have power to weaken that part of 
the bowel involved in disease. I am very 
sorry it does not weaken it. For twenty 
years it has been demonstrated to my 
mind that almost every case of chronic 
constipation, biliousness, intestinal foul- 
ness, diarrhea, indigestion, self-poisoning 
(auto-infection or auto-intoxication) was 
due to too much activity and vigor of the 
lower bowels, this excessive activity and 
vigor being the result of chronic proctitis, 
colitis, etc. To lessen this muscular irri- 
183 



Intestinal Ills 

tability, and to devise means to relieve 
and cure quickly, has cost me more studi- 
ous hours than the aggregate of all the 
other diseases and symptoms of the lower 
bowels. 

If liquids washed away the mucus from 
the mucous membrane, the throats of 
many individuals ought to be very harsh 
and dry, inasmuch as six to eight glasses 
of liquids pass through their mouths and 
throats during every day of twenty-four 
hours. Even after the *' dry feeling in 
the throat and stomach " has been bounti- 
fully attended to by the owner, the con- 
versation usually becomes more loquacious 
and hilarious, and there is no suggestion 
that the intemperate person had spent 
many hours in a hot desert without water. 
The frequent flushings they give their 
throats and stomachs really do not seem 
to wash the mucus away. 

When a person consults an oculist about 

an affection of the eyes and glasses are 

prescribed, good sense will inform him 

that the glasses must be worn while the 

184 



Enema Not Harmful 

imperfect functioning of the eyes requires 
them. If a limb be fractured and spHnts 
be applied, would you worry lest you form 
the habit of wearing them ? Certainly 
not ; you expect in due time to recover 
the proper use of the limb. So if you are 
compelled to use crutches you do not 
worry about forming the crutch habit, for 
you will use them as long as needed and 
discard them at the proper time. 

As to its being unnatural to flush the 
bowels with water, I would say that it is 
very unnatural to suffer from proctitis ac- 
companied with its annoying symptoms, 
such as constipation, indigestion, diarrhea, 
auto-intoxication, emaciation, anemia, 
muddy complexion, foul breath, blotches 
and pimples on the face, each and all of 
which indicate a physical debasement. 

It is unnatural to wear glasses, crutches, 
splints, wigs, artificial teeth, artificial 
eyes, but many people do such unnatural 
things. Many of our habits are not ex- 
actly '' natural," but they are rational, 
none the less ; such, for example, as bath- 
185 



Intestinal Ills 

ing the body night and morning ; cleans- 
ing the mouth and teeth after each meal ; 
and the nostrils and ears several times a 
day. The frequency of these practices 
may, with some people, be unnecessary 
and useless, but no real harm is done by 
their scrupulous cleanliness — physical and 
mental. 

Proctitis is usually worse than it seems 
to be. This is because of the insidious 
progress of the inflammation during the 
fifteen, twenty or more years before the 
local symptoms at the anus or in the anal 
canal are sufficiently annoying to compel 
the sufferer to seek treatment. Such suf- 
ferers are, as a rule, born with the idea 
that the liver regulates the whole aliment- 
ary canal ; and if the sufferer has not this 
hereditary notion, his physician will soon 
impart it to him with his diagnosis and 
treatment. The disciple of cathartics, 
whether the cathartics be in the form of 
pills, powders, or solutions, or contain 
belladonna and opium to overcome the 
cramping pain the dose would otherwise 

i86 



Enema Not Harmful 

occasion, has no legitimate reason to in- 
dulge in the hope of a cure or of even 
moderate relief of the real source of trouble 
— the proctitis. It is proceeding on the 
liver theory, when the key is, as has 
been shown in these articles, Proctitis, in- 
flammation of the anus and rectum. Phy- 
sicians ignorant of the key to all bowel 
troubles even prescribe strychnine in 
order to stimulate bowels which have 
already an excessive amount of stimula- 
tion due to the presence of the proctitis, 
which, as has been said, over-stimulates 
the lower bowels because of the inflam- 
mation. 

The chronic character of proctitis of 
many years' duration, improperly diag- 
nosed and treated, must necessarily com- 
pel a rather long and continued use of 
the enema, especially so if not accompa- 
nied by proper local treatment of all the 
inflamed surface. I should not care to 
treat patients suffering from proctitis, 
constipation, etc., unless they used the 

enema twice a day. The feces and gases 

187 



Intestinal Ills 

should escape the bowels at least twice in 
twenty-four hours. Any less than two 
stools a days is abnormal and will result 
in infection and disease. You may not 
always succeed in having two stools when 
first treating the local disease, but what 
you properly start out to accomplish will 
be attained in due time. 

Free evacuation of the contents of the 
bowels should occur at least twice in 
twenty-four hours. This can be accom- 
plished by injecting into the colon from 
one to four quarts of warm water. Before 
taking the large injection, relieve the 
bowels of any gas seeking liberation, and 
of course, also, of whatever feces may 
come readily. Then take a small injec- 
tion, using very little water : just enough 
to bring on a relief of as much feces and 
gas as possible. It is not well to drive 
the gas back and up into the colon ; hence 
the precaution to suggest a further pass- 
age with a small quantity of water before 
taking the large injection. 

Enemata, and also the use of the recur- 

188 



Enema Not Harmful 

rent douche, can in no way be harmful — 
if the water be of a proper temperature — 
to a normal or even to a diseased bowel ; 
therefore the fear of habit is absurd and 
should not receive a moment s considera- 
tion. The length of time during which 
the enemata and the douche are to be 
used, whether months or years, will de- 
pend on the character of the disease that 
made its use necessary. 



l8g 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

man's best friend. 

TRAVEL the world from end to end 
You ne'er will find a better friend 
Than sparkling water, pure and free, 
Most precious boon to you and me. 
It cheers the faint, it crowns the feast, 
Makes food to grow for man and beast; 
In sickness soothes the fevered frame. 
There 's healing in its very name. 
And what can more life-giving be 
Than cooling breezes from the sea, 
Whose bosom bears upon their way 
The stately ships from day to day? 
A treasure trove of priceless worth ; 
A jewelled belt for mother Earth, 
Encircling with its silvery bands, 
She binds together many lands. 
To cure disease dame Nature brings 
Her remedy in mineral springs ; 
Water without, water within. 
Equally good for stout or thin ; 
And more than man can e'er devise 
Invigorates and purifies. 
Travel the world from end to end, 
You ne'er will find a better friend. 

190 



CHAPTER XXV. 

PHYSIOLOGICAL IRRIGATION. 

THE scientific irrigation of land is pretty 
well understood by those who have 
financial interest in soil requiring it. The 
wonderful beauty and freshness of flower 
and fruit give evidence of what scientific ir- 
rigation can do. So from a commercial and 
esthetic point of view the proper amount 
of daily moisture for land, tree or vine, is 
of such importance that it receives the 
consideration of those interested. How 
many persons, however, in the course of a 
lifetime have given ten minutes to ser- 
ious consideration of the question : Hozv 
much water should be imbibed daily tmder 
the varying conditions of the bodys gar- 
den ? Those who give no consideration 
to the problem of how to attain and main- 
tain a healthy and vigorous physical basis 

are persons who usually drift into habits 
191 



Intestinal Ills 

for which they will, sooner or later, have 
to pay the penalty. 

For the first twenty or more years the 
body is, as a rule, unfortunate in not hav- 
ing an intelligent tenant. For man mis- 
uses his physiological estate, and lets 
things go to rack and ruin ere he wakes 
to realize how it might have been as to 
length of days and strength of body and 
mind. Enlighten him, after he has reached 
adult years, on the values and needs of 
physiological and psychological functions ; 
you will find that however eager he 
may be to follow the light he is handi- 
capped by vicious habits and by confirmed, 
destructive changes which had seized on 
him when he was quite too young and 
incompetent to care for his body. What 
a topsy-turvy world this is, to be sure ! 

It Is astonishing what a number of peo- 
ple there are who drink little or nothing, 
and especially amazing Is It to find this 
lack of sense In people suffering from 
constipation. One would suppose that 
they above all others would see the wls- 

ig2 



The Need of Water 

dom of irrigating their bowels. But it is 
seldom that there is one who thinks of 
such a thing. A cup of coffee or tea at 
meal-time, in addition to the liquid con- 
tained in the food, is the extent of water 
consumption by ever so many teetotalers 
and other '' totalers," especially women, 
until they reach, say, thirty years of age. 
Such persons as a rule are not long-lived, 
inasmuch as their power of resistance is 
small, owing to their lack of blood, a lack 
in quality as well as in quantity. The 
blood pressure in their arteries and veins 
is light, as evidenced by their pale, sallow 
complexion, and the dry, scaly, feverish 
skin, which seldom or never perspires. 
The body garden has not been properly 
irrigated and is slowly drying up as age 
advances. Did you ever notice how like 
death such persons appear when they are 
asleep ? Their dull, pasty complexions 
alarm us then. When I see them a de- 
sire to soak these dried specimens of 
humanity possesses me. Is it not unfor- 
tunate that we were not born with an 
193—13 



Intestinal Ills 

automatic irrigator ? We even lack a tube 
on our boiler to indicate the danger point ! 
Deficient by nature in these little conven- 
iences, and unaided by science, man is 
compelled to give some attention to the 
irrigation of his physiological soil, how- 
ever indifferent or careless he may be. 

Planters and gardeners have treatises 
on irrigation. Have mothers or nurses 
any similar guides ? Such books are un- 
known to modern civilization. Infants, 
boys and girls, and adults are brought up 
haphazard, and their garden of life be- 
comes choked with weeds. The drought 
soon makes itself felt, and a little grave- 
yard mound is their usual fate. Before 
some of us wither and fade, to what a 
pest-weed is our adipose changed for 
want of life-giving water. 

Man's most serious physiological fault 
is the toleration of constipation ; or even 
of semi-constipation induced by the twenty- 
four-hour habit of stooling. In other 
words, his fault is the toleration of intes- 
tinal uncleanliness. And next to this 

194 



The Need of Water 

foolhardiness is his negligence in the mat- 
ter of drinking daily a quantity of pure 
soft water sufficient to aid in the proper 
stimulation and circulation of the blood, 
in the proper elimination of the waste 
material from the body, and in the proper 
assimilation of nutriment by the system. 

If parents would encourage their chil- 
dren to become bibbers of pure spring 
water daily it would not be easy to make 
them bibbers of intoxicants in after years. 
I would give a child all the liquid it de- 
sires, I would even encourage it to take 
more rather than less, and the best liquid 
of all for this purpose is pure soft water. 
Man's body is 70 per cent water. It is 
therefore a good-sized water cask with a 
ramification of countless canals or pipes 
imbedded in soft connective tissues, 
nerves and muscles, all of which are sup- 
ported by a bony framework ; through 
the centre of this runs the alimentary 
canal, down which waters may flow and 
disappear like unto a stream lost in the 
sand, to reappear and ooze from skin, 
195 



Intestinal Ills 

lungs, kidneys and intestinal canal. Every 
organ and tissue luxuriates in water ; 
they lave and live in and by it. With all 
kinds of food it is introduced into the 
body. Water acts as a solvent for the 
nutritious elements and as a sponsor for 
the elimination of foreign substances and 
worn-out tissues of the system. It also 
serves to maintain a proper degree of 
tension in the tissues, which tension is es- 
sential to the proper circulation of the 
lymphatic fluids. 

The tonic reaction of externally applied 
water is well known. But the advantages 
of the internal use of water are hardly 
known at all because the reactions of the 
circulation, temperature, respiration, di- 
gestion and secretions are less noticed. 

Two or three pints of cold water at a 
temperature of forty to forty-five degrees 
drunk at intervals of half an hour will re- 
duce the pulse from eight to thirty beats. 
The copious drinking of cold water will 
act as a diuretic, removing stagnated 

secretions, and will at the same time 

196 



The Need of Water 

improve the quahty of the pulse and the 
arterial tone. The drinking of warm 
water will increase the pulse from five to 
fifteen beats, and at the same time will re- 
lax the vessel walls and also increase the 
cutaneous secretions to a marked degree. 

The drinking of a large quantity of 
water not only increases the secretions of 
the kidneys — assisting them in the work 
of carrying off solid constituents, espe- 
cially urea — it also increases the secre- 
tions of the skin, saliva, bile, etc. Under 
proper conditions the internal use of 
water acts as a stimulant to the nerves 
that control the blood-vessels, a stimulant 
similar to that produced by its external 
application. 

I advise the drinking of a copious 

quantity of water daily. There need be 

no fear that this practice will thin the 

blood too much, as the ready elimination 

of the water will not permit such a result 

to ensue. I would further advise the 

generous use of water (temperature 60°) 

at meal-times. I pray you do not drink 
197 



Intestinal Ills 

to wash down food : a bad habit of most 
of us. Drink all you desire ; and if you 
are like many who have no desire for 
water, cultivate it, even if it takes years. 
The imbibed water will be in the tissues 
in about an hour ; and the entire quantity 
will escape in about three and one-half 
hours. The demand on the part of the 
system for water is subject to great varia- 
tion and is somewhat regulated by the 
quantity discharged from the organism. 
Physiologists declare that water is formed 
in the body by a direct union of oxygen 
and hydrogen, but those who have culti- 
vated the drink-little habit need not hope 
to find an excuse for themselves in this 
fact : chronic ill-health betrays them. 
Water in organic relations with the body 
never exists uncombined with inorganic 
salts (especially sodium chloride) in any 
of the fluids, semi-solids, or solids of the 
body. It enters into the constitution of 
the tissues, not as pure water, but always 
in connection with inorganic salts. In 

case of great loss of blood by hemorrhage, 

198 



The Need of Water 

a saline solution of six parts of sodium 
chloride with one thousand parts of steril- 
ized water injected into the system will 
wash free the stranded corpuscles and give 
the heart something to contract upon. 

When water is taken into the stomach, 
its temperature, its bulk, and its slight ab- 
sorption react upon the system ; but the 
major part of it is thrown into the intes- 
tinal canal. When it is of the tempera- 
ture of about 60° it gives no very decided 
sensation either of heat or cold ; between 
60° and 45° it creates a cool sensation, 
and below 45° a decidedly cold one. 
Water at a temperature of about 50° is a 
generator of appetite. A sufficient quan- 
tity should be taken for that end ; say, 
one or two tumblers an hour or so before 
each meal, followed by some exercise. 
Those who have acquired the waterless 
habit, and the many ills resulting from it, 
will hardly relish cool water as an appe- 
tizer ; but if they would become robust 
they must adopt the water habit — a habit 

that will refresh and rejuvenate nature. 
199 



Intestinal Ills 

Water of a temperature between 60° 
and 100° relaxes the muscles of the stom- 
ach and is apt to produce nausea, espe- 
cially if the effect of bulk be added to that 
of temperature. Lukewarm water seems 
to excite an upward peristalsis of the in- 
testines and thus produces sickness. 

Hot water acts as a stimulant and anti- 
septic, as a sedative and as a food. Water 
at a temperature of 1 10° to 120°, or more, 
will nearly always relieve a foul stomach 
and intestines. It should be slowly sipped, 
so that the stomach may not be uncom- 
fortably distended. After imbibing a pint 
or a pint and a half, wait for fifteen or 
thirty minutes to give it time to pass into 
the bowels, then drink more if thought 
advisable. Drink it an hour before meal- 
time. It will excite downward peristalsis, 
will dilute the foul contents of the stom- 
ach, and will thus aid the escape of these 
contents into the Intestines, which latter 
require the washing process as well. 
Sometimes It Is a good thing to omit one, 

two or three meals while the washing pro- 

200 



The Need of Water 

cess is being continued. Commence treat- 
ment with pure hot water. To make it 
appetizing, add a pinch of salt or of bicar- 
bonate of soda ; with children add sugar. 
It will pay you to follow this treatment 
for the cleansing of the alimentary canal. 

The vitality of the body may be sus- 
tained for days and weeks on water alone ; 
there is therefore no hurry about food. 
If human beings would only keep their 
bowels and stomachs clean they would 
avoid all the ills that flesh is heir to, ex- 
cept, of course, those due to accident. 

My remarks have been confined to irri- 
gation per orem (that is, by way of the 
mouth), and nothing has been said of irri- 
gation per anum (by injection), since I 
have treated the latter subject fully in 
several previous chapters, to which the 
reader is referred. Be sure to follow the 
counsel there given, and use the enema 
two or three times a day in moderate 
quantities as indicated. 



20I 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

PROPER TREATMENT FOR DISEASES OF THE 
ANUS AND RECTUM VERY ESSENTIAL. 

NO doubt the readers of the preceding 
chapters on proctitis and its numer- 
ous symptoms — noted under separate 
headings — would Hke to know something 
about the home treatment for such an in- 
sidious and grave disease. Every sufferer 
wants to be a self-doctor. This commend- 
able desire it is usually impossible to put in- 
to practice. If physicians so often fail to 
cure the ailments I have described, what can 
be expected of those who have no know- 
ledge at all of diagnosis and treatment ? 

A skilful physician is the choicest gem 
of civilization, and an intelligent patient 
its worthy setting. Surely it is a moral 
crime, an inexcusable folly to tolerate a 
disease with its inevitable train of dire 
consequences, up to the point when the 

202 



Proper Treatment Essential 

discomfort compels one to seek treat- 
ment. There are patients, of course, 
who have good and sufficient excuses for 
their painful predicament ; they have, for 
example, tried persistently for relief and 
cure, but have failed to find a physician 
competent to treat their particular case. 
How many unskilled prescribers there 
are, and how glaring their shortcomings ! 
Some hold out taking inducements to suf- 
ferers ; their one object being to transfer 
their patients' cash to their own pocket. 
'T were charitable to consider these ig- 
norant ; but alas ! many of them are poi- 
soned by the ** fakir" germ. Stuff is sold 
by the conscienceless, claiming to cure 
"piles," to ''give instant relief," and 
promising '* a complete cure in a few 
days " ; and as to itching piles, why ! 
" only a few applications are necessary for 
a cure ; six boxes for five dollars " ! etc. 

No remedy that sufferers apply them- 
selves can be more than a temporary re- 
lief : it cannot really cure piles, polypus, 

fistula, tabs, pruritus (itching) — all of 
203 



Intestinal Ills 

them consequences of proctitis. Of 
course one should be thankful for the lit- 
tle relief to be got temporarily from ad- 
vertised and drug-store drugs ; nothing 
more than relief can be expected of them. 
There are indeed times when a palliative 
treatment will serve to tide the sufferer 
over a few days until he is able to con- 
sult a competent physician. But how 
strange it is that so many sufferers regard 
their anatomy and physiology so lightly 
as to think of using remedies, even for 
relief, without first undergoing a thorough 
examination by a competent physician. 
In troubles of a rectal character it is ex- 
ceedingly foolhardy to allow any one to 
prescribe without insisting upon a thor- 
ough examination to ascertain whether 
there be any disease of a cancerous nature 
present, or what the trouble actually is, 
and its progress. To expect one remedy 
or prescription to meet all the require- 
ments for the cure of a chronic disease of 
the anus and rectum and of the many 

complications accompanying it is hardly 

204 



Proper Treatment Essential 

sensible, but that is just what a great 
many do expect. No one remedy in the 
market, or any number of them combined, 
can effect a cure, for the simple reason 
that proper local treatment by a physi- 
cian is of paramount importance. Un- 
less of a traumatic (externally produced 
wound) origin, diseases of the anal and 
rectal canals are usually of fifteen, twenty 
or more years' incubation before the an- 
noying symptoms become apparent. This 
accounts for the slight attention to the 
maturing trouble and for the fact that 
such attention can afford nothing more 
than a palliation or postponement. A 
real cure requires a combination of means, 
all working harmoniously for the proper 
length of time. Proper treatment and 
the proper time are the two prime requi- 
sites ; and the third and final requisite is, 
of course, a sensible patient. 

Before home treatment is to be thought 
of it is accordingly advisable to have an 
examination and a prescription for the 

specific local treatment necessary for a 
205 



Intestinal Ills 

trouble like piles, fissure, polypus, tabs, 
itching, fistula, varicose veins, abscess, 
ulcer, granulation, hypertrophy, or atrophy 
as the case may be. The local treat- 
ment can best be aided by a combination 
of remedies with suitable instruments for 
their use between the periods of local at- 
tention by the physician. The writer of 
this has no cure-all to send the sufferers, 
although it might be to his financial ad- 
vantage to have one ; he is, however, al- 
ways ready to advise and relieve those 
who cannot visit him immediately. The 
relief afforded often facilitates the cure by 
permitting a more extensive local treat- 
ment at the first visit. 

The Use of Instruments for Injecting 
Water. 

To do something at home for one's self 
for relief from soreness and pain due to 
anal and rectal diseases, a few suitable in- 
struments are required with which specific 
remedies may be used, especially that ex- 
cellent remedy — water. 

206 



Proper Treatment Essential 

It is unfortunate that the anal and rec- 
tal canals cannot be given rest when in- 
vaded by disease. Daily elimination of 
feces is a very important factor to health 
and to treatment. To accomplish this the 
very best means is water in various quan- 
tities as the case demands. It does not 
irritate the diseased canals — as cathartics 
do — but aids in the escape of imprisoned 
feces and gases which lodge above the 
region of the morbid process. Evacuation 
should be accomplished twice a day, by the 
injection at first of three or four quarts of 
water — thus obtaining a good daily flush- 
ing of one's sewer — and then, if advisable, 
gradually lessening the quantity at subse- 
quent injections to one or two pints at a 
time. The temperature should be ioo° to 
105° or more. Some people have an idea 
that water at the temperature named has 
a remedial effect on an inflamed anus and 
rectum. It has none whatever ; all it does 
is to wash away the deposits which might 
irritate the inflamed surface. Water at 

a temperature of 100° to 105° is not an 

207 



Intestinal Ills 

especially good antiseptic; and its intestinal 
use should not be continued longer than 
to bring away the effete and fetid material 
which may be lodged in the colon, sig- 
moid flexure and rectum. In the majority 
of cases its use should be limited to aid- 
ing the feces to escape from their normal 
receptacle — the sigmoid flexure — when- 
ever proctitis does not extend beyond the 
rectum. But many persons are deceived 
by the conduct of proctitis and are thus 
likely to omit the regular irrigation twice 
a day. They believe themselves to be in 
pretty good condition and do not realize 
that their old, implacable enemy may be 
excited into riot any day ; in which case 
the insurrection may last for months and 
then slowly settle down to semi-quiet 
again, reaching finally the point of its 
best behavior for a short period or until 
again provoked. 

The Use of the Recurrent Douche. 

Water at a temperature of 120° to 130° 

properly applied is a good therapeutic 

208 



Proper Treatment Essential 

agent in the treatment of proctitis. At 
that temperature it is an excellent anti- 
septic and astringent. Its continuous use 
for half to one hour applied with a recur- 
rent douche brings about a contraction of 
the engorged and dilated blood-vessels ; 
and accompanied by local treatment and 
by other remedies Is the best means 
known for restoring the nerves to their 
normal function of controlling the proper 
circulation of blood in the diseased organ. 
Treatment with the recurrent douche Is 
of course to follow, not to precede, the 
evacuation of the bowels ; but at any time 
when there is a tendency toward addi- 
tional evacuation on the admission of the 
hot water, the new douche is easily adjust- 
able to the contingency without removal 
from the anal canal ; it will facilitate 
the escape of the feces with the return 
flow of the water. The new recurrent 
douche has therefore the great advantage 
of promoting simultaneously both the 
thorough evacuation of the bowels and 

the therapeutic effect of hot water. 
209 — 14 



Intestinal Ills 
SitZ'Bath, 

There are patients who, because of years 
of neglect of their local ailments, are taken 
with severe attacks of inflammation of the 
anus and rectum, involving considerable 
prolapse, much swelling around the anus, 
and general local soreness and pain ; all of 
which is often accompanied by a general 
disrelish of life. For this condition noth- 
ing is so good as a very hot sitz-bath, if 
properly adjusted to the parts and con- 
tinued for about an hour at a sitting. 
The alleviation afforded is so decided and 
the local and prolonged application of hot 
water so restorative that it may be left to 
the sufferer to determine how often this 
bath is to be repeated. It may be taken 
as often as there is an inclination to do so. 
The sitz-bath apparatus should be scien- 
tifically adapted to the parts so that the 
bather will not sit lower than ten or 
twelve inches, thereby avoiding a strain- 
ing position. During the bath there 
should be more or less pressure against 



Proper Treatment Essential 

the anal tissues, which assists the hot 
water in expelHng the blood from the 
inflamed parts. From the beginning to 
the end of the bath the water must be 
as hot as the tissues will tolerate. Only a 
small portion of the buttocks need be im- 
mersed in the hot water. 

Spring Water the Ideal Beverage, 

Those who suffer from disease of the 
rectum, with rare exceptions, are consti- 
pated or semi-constipated, which condition 
in turn aggravates or disturbs the inflamed 
parts. To overcome this constipated con- 
dition all sorts of laxatives are taken, 
which will in the end do grave harm not 
only to the whole system, but especially 
to the inflamed parts, irritating them still 
more. There is a valuable therapeutic 
agent seldom taken by the constipated ; 
in fact, it is never thought of ; unfortu- 
nately the remedy is not easily to be had 
in its pure state by most of us, boxed as 
we are in cities. Sold under various 
names as mineral water, it is too often 



Intestinal Ills 

adulterated. 'T is a simple remedy, and 
yet it Kas a wider range of healing power 
than any other ; a universal solvent, ap- 
plicable to all diseases and all states of 
health. I would write it at the head of 
all remedial agents : pure spring water ! 
We do not drink enough water. If we 
were to imbibe at least two quarts of pure 
water daily we would be healthier and 
have better movements of our bowels. 
Water may be taken freely during meal- 
time ; not, however, for the purpose of 
washing down half-masticated food. Al- 
coholic drinks, coffee and tea would better 
be dispensed with, also tobacco. The 
nervous system has enough to bear with- 
out the use of avoidable irritants. 

Other Hygienic Agencies. 

Too much cannot be urged as to the 
advisability of a proper amount of exer- 
cise, sleep, rest, food, breathing, cleanli- 
ness (internal and external), as well 
as and above all, pure, high-minded 
thoughts and serene temper — the out- 

212 



Proper Treatment Essential 

come of the habit of viewing life philo- 
sophically. Care should be taken to 
protect the feet and body from sudden 
climatic changes, thus avoiding catarrhal 
troubles, especially of the lower bowels. 
As to the wise and proper use of 
nature's pharmacopoeia, nothing need be 
said here. However, I may be within 
my limits when I advise patients to use a 
little sense and not neglect disease of the 
lower bowel any more than they would 
neglect that of the eye, ear and throat. 
In the latter case they submit at once to 
an examination. Why not in the former ? 
Let them bear in mind that the cure of 
chronic proctitis is no hoHday job ; that it 
is, on the contrary, a task which re- 
quires constant attention. To merely 
relieve the annoying symptoms that ac- 
company it cannot be called a cure. But 
on the other hand relief may be the com- 
mencement of a cure. Of course the 
true way of looking at the subject of this 
disease is to regard the cure of proctitis as 

necessarily leading to the disappearance 
213 



Intestinal Ills 

in time of all the other troubles that were 
the outcome of that ailment. Through 
the harmonious efforts of patient and 
physician, marvellous results are often 
obtainable. 



214 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE body's book-keeping. 

MAN'S food is as varied as his work, 
more varied than the climate, with 
one food for the luxurious and one for 
the poor. The majority of us take what 
we can get, making no complaints ; even 
when we have a cook and a good one the 
same is true. The ideal diet prepared by 
the ideal cook no one has as yet made 
fashionable, but one thing is within the 
reach of all — cleanliness of the sewers of 
the body. Keep the contents of the 
bowels moving down and out steadily and 
regularly and you may eat almost any 
food and in almost any preparation and 
still be healthy. 

Just as a steam-engine, running at a 

given rate of speed, must be supplied 

with fuel sufficient to maintain that speed, 

so the human body must have the requi- 

215 



Intestinal Ills 

site food to maintain the speed of civilized 
society and business, and replace the 
waste of the tissues ; otherwise decline 
sets in and the reserve store of strength 
is exhausted. How shall we determine 
the proper amount and kind of food for the 
various ages, sexes, and conditions of life ? 
A leading authority says that the char- 
acter and amount of the daily excreta 
furnish suggestions as to the required 
food supply. (Kirk's Physiology, p. 208.) 
These excreta are found to be carbon, 
nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen in great part, 
with some sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine, 
sodium, etc. A summary is given {ibid., 
p. 432) of the expenditure for twenty-four 
hours : 

1. From the lungs : 

Carbonic acid about 15,000 grains 

Water " 5,000 

2. From the skin : 

Water " 11,500 '* 

Solid and gaseous matters " 250 " 

3. From the kidneys : 

Water " 23,000 " 

Organic matter " 680 " 

Saline bodies " 420 " 

216 



Gain and Loss 

4. From the intestines : 

Water about 2,000 grains 

Organic and mineral substances.... " 800 " 

Total daily expenditure : 

Solid matters " 17,150 " 

Water " 49,500 *' 

Altogether about eight and a half pounds. 
The credit side of the sheet is about as follows : 

Solids (chemically dry foods) 8,000 grains 

Water, combined or otherwise 35, 000 to 40,000 " 

Oxygen, absorbed by the lungs 13,000 " 

Altogether about eight and a half pounds. 

With the proper balance between the 
intake and the outgo, the functions of 
the body will be carried on normally, but 
the balance must be a proper one ; that is, 
not only must the entire waste be re- 
paired but the correct proportions of one 
kind of food and another must be ob- 
served. If all the elements needed are 
not furnished there can be no true coun- 
terpoise. 

How do we expend the energy ? By 
the common wear-and-tear incident upon 
all voluntary motion, all work and recrea- 
tion, carrying on the internal movements 
of digestion and respiration, by thinking, 

by loss of temperature, by indulgence of 
217 



Intestinal Ills 

any of our functions, and by any wrong 
indulgence especially. Excessive use, 
voluntary or otherwise, will of course di- 
minish our total capital and cut short our 
lives. Could we always maintain the 
right balance we need never die. 

The importance of what has been said 
must now be clearly apparent. We ought 
to be wisely interested in choosing the 
proper foods for our daily needs and in 
having them properly prepared ; we ought 
to know how much carbohydrates we need, 
how much proteids, and regulate our 
diet accordingly. The foods which con- 
tain nitrogen are chiefly the following : 
flesh of all animals, milk, eggs, leguminous 
fruits (peas, beans, lentils) ; those which 
contain carbohydrates chiefly are bread, 
starch, vegetables and especially potatoes, 
rice, etc. ; foods supplying fat are butter, 
lard, fat of meat, etc. Salts are furnished 
in almost all other substances, but espe- 
cially in green vegetables and fruits. 
Liquid food is obtained by water, too often 

neglected, and tea, coffee, beer, cider, etc. 

218 



Gain and Loss 

Alcohol has no power to form tissue or 
to repair waste and cannot be regarded as 
a true food. Tea and coffee are almost 
entirely stimulant, not nutritious, and 
should be taken sparingly or not at all. 

The common mistakes in diet are over- 
feeding or taking too much of one kind 
of food, and of the latter class perhaps an 
excess of starchy food is the most mis- 
chievous. If taken in excess, especially 
by the young, the starchy foods are not 
digested and what does not digest must 
putrefy : the result is a bowel distended 
with harmful gases. Many people eat 
too much nitrogenous food, with resulting 
plethora or gout. A great deal of vigor- 
ous exercise in the open air is required to 
use up such a diet. 



2T9 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

SELECTION AND PREPARATION OF FOOD. 

THE requirements for normal di- 
gestion, assimilation and elimination 
are : (i) An intestinal canal clean and 
sound from mouth to anus ; (2) nutritious 
food properly prepared ; (3) regularity 
and moderation in eating ; (4) free use of 
pure water, sufficient to forward the 
emulsification and assimilation of the food 
and the elimination of waste — whether 
that waste be of the residual portion of 
the food or of detritus of tissue ; (5) a 
seasonably clad body, free from fatigue 
or loss of sleep ; (6) a cheerful mind. 

Every sensible person will grant that a 
good digestion of vegetable or animal food 
furnishes sufficient steam and stimulus 
for the physical man ; that a good di- 
gestion of intellectual food (ideas) fur- 
nishes the corresponding requisites for 

220 



Nourishment for Man 



the mental man ; and that exaked senti- 
ments are the pabulum of the spiritual. 

Why over-stimulate the physical, and 
reflexively degrade the mental and spirit- 
ual, by indulgence in tea, coffee, beer, 
wine, liquors, opium, tobacco, etc. ? Over- 
stimulation will bring on indigestion ; and 
prostration will follow that. Remember 
that Nature does not carry long credit ac- 
counts. 

A suggestion for the selection and 
preparation of physical foods is here 
given ; this book being hardly the place 
for a corresponding list of mental and 
spiritual foods. 

FOODS EASY OF DIGESTION. 



ARTICLES OF FOOD HOW PREPARED 

Venison steak Broiled 

Pig's feet soused Boiled 

Brains Boiled 

Salmon, tripe or trout 

(fresh) Boiled or fried 

Eggs, fresh Whipped 

Rice Boiled 

Sago or barley Boiled 

Apples, sweet arid mel- 
low Raw 

Tomatoes or lettuce Raw 



TIME OF DIGESTION 

hour 30 minutes 
00 

45 

00 
30 
00 

45 

30 
30 



Intestinal Ills 



ARTICLES OF FOOD HOW PREPARED 

Melons or watercress ... Raw 

Peaches, plums or pears.. Raw or stewed 

Oranges or bananas Raw 

Asparagus or dandelion . . Boiled 

Onions or apricots Stewed 

Mushrooms Boiled 

Cereal coffee Boiled 

Blackberries 

Grape-nuts 

Lemons 

Watermelons 

Doxsee's clam juice and 

little neck clams , 

Milkine, Horlick's and 

Mellin's food 

Cereal milk 

Armour & Co.'s Vigoral. 
Valentine's or Wyeth's 

beef juice or Wiel's 

beef jelly 



TIME OF DIGESTION 

hour 20 minutes 

" 30 " 

" 30 «' 

.. 30 .. 

" 30 " 

" 30 " 

<. 30 

" 30 •• 

" 00 

" 00 '• 

'• 00 " 

" 00 

" 30 " 

" 00 •• 

" 00 ** 



00 



FOODS NOT SO EASY OF DIGESTION. 

ARTICLES OF FOOD HOW PREPARED 

Beef Boiled 

Pig, sucking Roasted 

Liver, beef (fresh) Broiled 

Lamb, fresh Broiled 

Turkey, domestic. ..... .Roasted or 

boiled 

' ' wild Roasted 

Goose, " Roasted 

Chicken Fricasseed 

Codfish, cured and dry... Boiled 
Oysters, fresh Raw 



TIME OF DIGESTION 

2 hours 00 minutes 


2 " 30 
2 "00 




2 " 30 




2 " 30 
2 " 18 




2 " 30 

2 " 45 
2 "00 




2 " 35 





222 



Nourishment for Man 



ARTICLES OF FOOD HOW PREPARED 

Hash (chopped meat and 

vegetables) Warmed 

Eggs, fresh Roasted 

" Raw 

Milk Boiled 

" Uncooked 

Gelatine Boiled 

Custard Baked 

Tapioca or barley Boiled 

Beans, green Boiled 

Sponge cake Baked 

Apples, sour and mellow. Raw 
" " " hard . . . Raw 
Parsnips or green corn . . Boiled 

Potatoes and yams - Roasted or 

baked 

Cabbage, head Raw 

" " with vine- 
gar Raw 

Cauliflower Boiled 

Peas (green) or squash. .Boiled 
Cranberries or cherries. .Stewed 

Rhubarb or figs Stewed 

Turnips Boiled 

Sprouts Boiled 

Raspberries Raw 

Dates o Raw 

Buttermilk Raw 

Pumpkin Cooked 



ARTICLES OF FOOD HOW PREPARED 

Beef, fresh, lean Broiled 

" " ** Roasted 

223 



TIME OF DIGESTION 


2 hours 30 minutes 


2 


• 15 " 


2 ' 


• GO " 


2 ' 


' 00 


2 ' 


' 15 '• 


2 ' 


' 30 " 


2 


' 45 " 


2 


' CO 


2 ' 


* 30 " 


2 


' 30 " 


2 


' 00 '* 


2 


' 50 - 


2 


' 30 " 


2 ' 


' 30 " 


2 


' 30 " 


2 


' GO " 


2 ' 


' 00 " 


2 


' GO 


2 


' GO " 


2 ' 


' 30 " 


2 


' 30 " 


2 


' GO " 


2 


' GO " 


2 ' 


' GO '• 


2 


• OG " 


2 ' 


' 00 " 


OF r 


)IGESTION. 


TIME 


OF DIGESTION 


3 hoi 


irs OG minutes 


3 


'00 " 



Intestinal Ills 



ARTICLES OF FOOD HOW PREPARED 

Beef, dry Roasted 

" with salt only Boiled 

" " mustard, etc. Boiled 

Pork, steak .Broiled 

" recently salted. .. .Broiled 

" Raw 

" ....Stewed 

Mutton, fresh Broiled 

" " Roasted 

" Boiled 

Flounder, fresh Boiled 

Oysters, fresh Roasted 

" " Stewed 

Codfish (salted) or white- 
fish Boiled 

Sausages, fresh Broiled 

Rabbits Broiled 

Butter or cream 

Eggs, fresh Hard-boiled or 

fried 

" Soft-boiled 

Potatoes, turnips Or car- 
rots Boiled 

Radishes or lentils Boiled 

Bread (white) fresh Baked 

" whole wheat Baked 

" rye Baked 

" graham Baked 

' ' corn Baked 

Corn cake Baked 

Apple dumpling Boiled 

Soup, mutton or oyster. . Boiled 

" bean Boiled 

" chicken Boiled 



TIME OF DIGESTION 


3 hours 30 


minutes 


3 


' 45 


(t 


3 


' 30 


" 


3 


' 15 


" 


3 


' 15 


(i 


3 


' 00 


" 


3 


' 00 


" 


3 


' 00 


t< 


3 


' 15 


11 


3 


' 00 


<( 


3 


' 30 


" 


3 


' 15 


" 


3 


' 30 


t( 


3 


' 00 


- 


3 


' 20 


" 


3 


' 00 


♦ » 


3 


' 00 


" 


3 


' 30 


•• 


3 


' 00 


" 


3 


* 30 


(( 


3 


' 30 


t( 


3 


' 15 


" 


3 


' 30 


'* 


3 


' 30 


" 


3 


• 30 


*' 


3 


' 15 


" 


3 


' 00 


" 


3 


' 00 


«t 


3 
3 


' 30 
' 00 


n 


3 


' 00 


♦♦ 



224 



Nourishment for Man 



ARTICLES OF FOOD HOW PREPARED 

Chocolate or cocoa Boiled 

Currants or filberts 

Raisins 

Hazelnuts 

Peanuts Roasted 

Potatoes (sweet) Roasted 

Walnuts 

Chestnuts Roasted 

Beans, lima Boiled 

Zwieback 

Turkey Boiled or 

roasted 

Eels Fried 

Oleomargarine 

Cabbage Boiled 

Buckwheat cakes 

Mutton, lean Roasted 

Herring Broiled 

Cheese 



ARTICLES OF FOOD HOW PREPARED 

Beef, fresh, lean Fried 

*' old, hard, salted. .Boiled 

** recently salted Boiled 

" Fried 

' ' fat or lean Roasted 

" suet (fresh) Boiled 

" soup with vegeta- 
bles and bread Boiled 

Beef, soup from marrow 

bones Boiled 

Pork, fat and lean Roasted 

•• recently salted, .. .Boiled 
2?5— 15 



TIME OF DIGESTION 


3 hours 00 minutes 


3 


" 00 


3 


" 00 


3 


" 30 •♦ 


3 


" 00 " 


3 


" CO " 


3 


" 30 " 


3 


•' 15 " 


3 


" GO 


3 


" 00 " 


3 to 4 hours 


3 ' 


4 '• 


3 ' 


4 " 


3 ' 


' 4 " 


3 ' 


4 " 


3 ' 


4 " 


y/z ' 


4K " 


zYz ' 


6 " 


DIG 


ESTION. 


TIME 


OF DIGESTION 


4 ho 


urs 00 minutes 




.. jg .. 




" 30 " 




" 15 " 




" 15 '* 




" 30 " 



4 


" 15 


5 


" 15 


4 


" 00 



Intestinal Ills 



ARTICLES OF FOOD 



HOW PREPARED TIME OF DIGESTION 



Pork recently salted Fried 

' ' ham Cured 

Veal Broiled 

" Fried 

Mutton, suet Boiled 

Fowls Boiled or 

roasted 

Heart, animal Fried 

Salmon, salted, or mack- 
erel Boiled 

Cabbage, with vinegar. .Boiled 

Cheese, old, strong Raw 

Duck Roasted 



hours 15 minutes 

30 " 

00 " 

30 ♦' 

30 ♦' 

GO •• 

GO '* 



30 



3% to 6^ hours 
4 hours 30 minutes 



226 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

DIET FOR INDIGESTION. 

INDIGESTION is a symptom of a 
^ functional disturbance or is due to a 
local disease in some portion of the di- 
gestive apparatus. Therefore diet must 
be adapted to the sensibility of the stomach 
and bowels, to gastric and intestinal se- 
cretions, mobility, absorption and elimi- 
nation, to the abnormal increased feeling 
of hunger or to the absence of the sensa- 
tion of hunger. 

The food should be of easy solubility 
and offer slight resistance to the digestive 
juices. It should not mechanically or 
chemically irritate or impede intestinal 
peristalsis. It should not increase fer- 
mentation or putrefaction and the greater 
portion of it should be absorbed 

The object of diet is not to eat less 
227 



Intestinal Ills 

food than usual but to secure more nour- 
ishment until the proper quantity is con- 
sumed each day. The restriction of foods 
does not mean limitation. Regular hours 
for meals should be religiously observed 
by sufferers from indigestion. The food 
should be thoroughly masticated. Good 
judgment should be used by each individ- 
ual in selecting and preparing the food- 
stuffs ; also in the amount taken at each 
meal, and the proper length of time to 
continue the diet. 

You may take : 

Soup — in moderate quantity : Doxsee's 
clam juice, and little neck clams ; cream 
of peas, etc. ; vermicelli ; tapioca ; tomato ; 
clear soups of chicken, beef, mutton. 

Fish : trout ; bass ; perch ; shad ; weak- 
fish ; whitefish ; smelts ; raw oysters. 

Meat : roasted or boiled beef ; mutton ; 

venison ; calf's head ; tongue ; sweetbread ; 

lamb chops ; squab ; roasted partridge ; 

pigeon ; calfs-foot jelly ; Armour & Co.'s 

Vigoral ; Valentine's or Wyeth's beef 

juice, or Wiel's beef jelly. 

228 



Diet for Indigestion 

Eggs : raw ; soft-boiled ; poached ; ome- 
lette ; eggs on toast. 

Bread — all over a day old : brown ; 
graham ; gluten ; rye ; zwieback ; crackers ; 
cracked wheat ; corn meal ; hominy ; 
wheaten and graham grits ; rolled rye and 
oats ; granose ; cerealin ; macaroni with 
toasted bread-crumbs ; farina, boiled with 
milk ; Milkine ; Horlick's or Mellin's food. 

Vegetables : spinach ; green peas ; greens ; 
lettuce ; watercress ; sweet corn ; aspara- 
gus ; celery ; artichokes ; baked tomatoes ; 
cauliflower. 

Dessert: baked, roasted or stewed ap- 
ples ; stewed pears or peaches ; baked 
bananas ; grapes ; oranges ; and most ripe 
fruits, if fresh. 

Beverages: hot, cool or cold water an 
hour before meals. Drink freely of the 
same during meal-time, but not to wash 
down food. Drink also : cereal coffee ; 
buttermilk ; koumiss ; fresh cider ; bouillon. 

Avoid : coffee ; tea ; milk ; ice-water ; 

cocoa ; chocolate ; malt liquors ; spirituous 

liquors ; sweet and effervescent wines ; 
229 



Intestinal Ills 

sugar; candies; foods containing much 
starch ; rich soups ; sauces and chowders ; 
all fried foods ; hot or fresh bread ; griddle- 
cakes ; doughnuts ; veal ; pork ; liver ; kid- 
ney ; hashes ; stews ; pickled, canned, 
preserved and potted meats ; turkey ; 
goose ; duck ; sausage ; salmon ; salt mack- 
erel ; cabbage ; radishes ; cucumbers ; 
cole-slaw ; turnips : potatoes ; beets ; pas- 
try ; jellies ; jams ; nuts. 



230 



CHAPTER XXX. 

DIET FOR CONSTIPATION AND OBSTIPATION. 

DIET is too often a makeshift for ig- 
norance, or it may be an aid until 
the cause of indigestion is removed ; or if 
not curable, a compromise effected on the 
best possible terms for continued exist- 
ence. We have found out the almost 
universal cause for constipation, obstipa- 
tion and costiveness ; therefore until you 
can have the proper local treatment we 
suggest the following foodstuffs, trusting 
to the sufferer's judgment how much and 
how often to take the nourishment. 

Coarse foods, stimulants and laxatives 
unduly excite the bowels. Avoid them if 
possible. Be regular in your habits as to 
meal-times ; eat three times daily, and 
about an equal amount at each meal. 

You may take : 

Soup: all kinds of meat and vegetable 
231 



Intestinal Ills 

soup ; broth ; bouillon. Reliable 
preparations of beef juice, jelly, etc. 

Fish : all kinds, broiled or baked ; raw 
oysters ; Doxsee's clam preparations. 

Meat : boiled or roasted ; poultry ; game, 
etc. 

Bread : graham ; brown ; whole wheat ; 
corn ; rye ; ginger ; shredded-wheat 
biscuit. 

Cereals : wheaten grits ; wheatena ; gran- 
ose ; oatmeal porridge ; Milkine ; 
Horlick's and Mellin's food. 

Vegetables : cauliflower ; spinach ; beans ; 
asparagus ; carrots ; onions ; Brus- 
sels sprouts ; tomatoes ; peas ; cel- 
ery ; cabbage. 
Vegetables should be especially well 

cooked to render them soft and easy of 

digestion. 

Salads : may be eaten if dressed with a 
generous supply of olive oil. 

Dessert : oranges ; melons ; prunes ; tama- 
rinds ; figs ; apples (raw or baked) ; 
pears ; plums ; peaches ; cherries ; 

raisins ; stewed fruit ; honey ; black- 

232 



Diet for Constipation 

berries ; strawberries ; huckleberries ; 
bananas. 
Some may find it advantageous to eat 
fruit before or between meals. 
Beverages : water — pure spring water 
preferably ; if this cannot be had, 
get, if possible, distilled water that 
has been aerated ; buttermilk ; fresh 
cider ; beer ; ale. 
Mineral waters like Hunyadi^ etc., irri- 
tate the cause of constipation (proctitis) 
in a way similar to cathartic remedies. 

Drink a tumbler or more of hot or cold 
water an hour before meals — preferably 
hot water. If the hot water be distaste- 
ful add a little salt. Drink freely of water 
about the temperature of 60° during the 
meals, but not for the purpose of empty- 
ing the mouth of food. 

On retiring at night and rising in the 
morning sip slowly from a quarter to half 
pint of water (hot or cold). In the morn- 
ing be sure to rinse the mouth free of the 
accumulated mucus before drinking the 
water. 
233 



Intestinal Ills 

The use of tea, chocolate, coffee and 
alcoholic drinks is so abused by those 
even who consider themselves temperate 
in their habits, that I recommend these 
beverages as remedies only in certain 
conditions of the system. 

About four pints of pure water {i:e., free 
from all salts or other foreign ingredients) 
should be imbibed in twenty-four hours. 
Avoid : sweets ; pastry of all kinds ; pud- 
dings ; rice ; milk ; cheese ; new 
bread ; nuts ; fried foods ; rich gravies ; 
farina and sago puddings ; salt meats ; 
salt fish ; veal ; goose ; liver ; hard- 
boiled eggs ; pork ; tea ; tobacco ; 
spirituous liquors ; uncooked straw- 
berries and huckleberries. Avoid 
also tomatoes and peaches when not 
fresh, as the acid generated by keep- 
ing them a few days is very irritating 
to an already inflamed bowel. 
Avoid substances that would inflame the 
tissues or cause congestion of any organ of 
the body. If the tongue be coated avoid 
sugar, starchy foods and fresh milk. 

234 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

COSTIVENESS, DIET, ETC. 

TAKE anything in the way of food 
which the unconsciously starved 
person can eat without the stomach and 
intestines protesting too much ; any of 
the foods recommended for constipation, 
indigestion, diarrhea ; and take yet more 
food if by so doing there is a gain in 
flesh, after exercising much patience as to 
time. 

Irrigate the system by imbibing freely 
of hot and cold water at various periods 
of the day. Good red wine mixed with 
the water drunk at meal-time may serve 
a good purpose in helping to enrich the 
blood. 

Keep the pores of the skin open by 
bathing ; and all the functions of the body 
active by exercise, massage, pure air, sun- 
light, rest, sleep and seasonable clothing. 

235 



Intestinal Ills 

The large intestines should be kept 
clean by proper amounts of water injected 
into them. The local cause of all the 
trouble should be treated by a competent 
physician. 

And with all the efforts, continue the 
treatment long enough to accomplish 
some good and then a much longer time 
to get well. Do not give up treatment 
under which you have improved if it re- 
quires one, two or three years to accom- 
plish what you have so well started out 
to do. 



236 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

DIET FOR DIARRHEA. 

A PERIOD marked by constipation, 
biliousness or poisons generated 
within or taken into the intestinal canal 
is often followed by diarrhea. Mental 
excitement will induce it in some persons. 
More often man's early and most com- 
mon malady, proctitis, is the direct or in- 
direct cause. Some forms of ulceration 
of the lower bowel induce diarrhea. 
Chronic cases of diarrhea usually follow 
the decline of vitality marked by the 
symptom of Costiveness, which means the 
interruption of all the functions of nutri- 
tion. The intestinal canal is then like a 
rubber tube with the contents hurried 
through it. The whole system is irritable 
as the result of an accumulation of sec- 
ondary symptoms expressed by the word 
auto-intoxication. 
237 



Intestinal Ills 

The food should be nutritious and non- 
irritating to the intestinal canal. 

Reliance must be placed, in severe 
cases, on liquid foods and beverages. 

The more solid foods may be taken in 
limited quantity as the recovery progres- 
ses. In more acute cases it is well to stop 
all food for twelve or twenty-four hours. 

You may take : 

Liquid Food and Beverages : Drink, if 
possible, pure spring water. If this can- 
not be obtained, sterilize the water, or 
distil and aerate it ; it must be pure and 
soft. Better still : drink toast- or rice- 
water ; kefyr, four days old ; koumiss ; 
lactic-acid water ; zoolak ; ^^g lemonade ; 
sterilized milk with one third lime-water ; 
whortleberry wine ; acorn cocoa ; unfer- 
mented grape-juice. 

Soup : chicken ; mutton ; clam ; oyster 
broth ; Doxsee's clam-juice ; bouillon ; 
Milkine ; Horlick's and Mellin's food. 

Meat : minced chicken ; scraped beef ; 
roast fowl ; beef steak ; fillet of beef ; raw 

beef ; sweetbread ; raw oysters. 

238 



Diet for Diarrhea 

Eggs : lightly boiled, poached. 

Cereals and Fruit : grapes at all 
hours, eaten without seeds or skin ; arrow- 
root ; tapioca ; sago ; barley mush ; maca- 
roni ; rice boiled with milk ; milk toast ; 
dry toast ; crackers ; junket ; bread pud- 
ding ; ^gg pudding, not sweetened ; hasty 
pudding, with flour and milk ; mashed 
potatoes. 

Avoid : pork ; veal ; nuts ; salt meats ; 
fish ; fried foods ; sugary foods ; fruits, 
cooked or raw ; oatmeal ; brown and gra- 
ham bread ; new bread ; vegetables ; and 
most soups. 



239 



A FINAL WORD TO THOSE TO 

WHOM I HAVE DEDICATED 

THIS BOOK. 

TT is very evident from the perusal of 
* this work that the symptoms of 
proctitis, both general and local, proceed 
from no trifling disease ; and also that the 
disease may have existed for a very long 
time, perhaps as much as twenty, forty or 
more years. During the greater part of 
its existence all sorts of medication have 
been tried to allay this or that annoying 
prominent symptom with a hope of a cure. 

At the congress of physicians that met 
in Paris In 1900, one of the subjects dis- 
cussed was chronic constipation and their 
"wise" conclusion was that man needed 
more grease, therefore they mourned the 
loss of the frying-pan. 

Symptoms induced by proctitis in vari- 
ous parts of the body are often accom- 
panied by painful local symptoms, called 

240 



A Final Word 

piles or a ''touch of the piles." Then 
local medication is added to the general 
treatment, and as usual matters go from 
bad to worse. Physicians consulted have 
been honest and kind, but with all their 
advice the increasing troubles continue. 
Your demands grow more pressing on 
your doctor and as a last resort he men- 
tions a surgical operation for the removal 
of one or more painful local symptoms. 
The fright is sufficient in most cases to 
make the sufferer endure the ills he has 
rather than flee to others he knows not, 
even risking life itself. Others more bold 
submit to an examination by the surgeon, 
which proves so painful at the time and 
causes so much subsequent suffering that 
they are now really content not to impor- 
tune any more for help. 

A few in desperation make up their 
minds to have the local anal symptom re- 
moved regardless of the final result. 

Thus millions of human beings have 

suffered and died and countless numbers 

are enduring the ills they have, not know- 
241 — 16 



Intestinal Ills 

Ing of a rational and humane system of 
treatment ; a treatment that not only re- 
moves the numerous annoying symptoms, 
but the cause as well ; a system that will 
stand the test of time, of common-sense, of 
constant investigation to know the why 
and wherefore of both disease and treat- 
ment. 

For over twenty years I have concerned 
myself with this and allied ailments, and 
have treated — without the use of the knife 
— all cases of piles, polypus, fissure, strict- 
ure, ulcerations, etc. At the present time 
physicians are writing me in this wise : 
** I want to take a course of instruction 
from you. I have performed some suc- 
cessful surgical operations on the rectum, 
but it is not profitable ; the people will 
not submit to it." Another writes : " Your 
treatment of hemorrhoids has been 
brought to my notice by my friend and 

patient, Mr. . The method you 

practise is certainly an ideal one and seems 
to have been most successful in your 

hands, and I would like to adopt it." 

242 



A Final Word 

To physicians and laymen interested, I 
will send, for twenty-five cents, my treatise 
on Diseases of the Anus and Rectum (en- 
titled How to Become Strong), It con- 
tains over loo anatomical illustrations, 
and 125 testimonials, and forms, there- 
fore, a valuable adjunct to this volume. 

All whose testimonials appear in the 
64-page book suffered from proctitis to a 
greater or less extent and with the excep- 
tion of a few all suffered from chronic 
constipation, indigestion, etc. 

Surgeons usually desire strong and vig- 
orous patients. The author asks merely 
for an intelligent patient, or for some one 
to direct the home attention necessary 
between treatments. 

This book, as well as the one entitled 
How to Become Strong, and the author's 
other printed instructions, are the result 
of his desire to make his patients intelli- 
gent on the subject of the disease and 
symptoms for which they seek his assist- 
ance. They truly cannot know too much 
for their own good in this regard ; an ig- 
243 



Intestinal Ills 

norant patient can not do justice either to 
himself or to his physician. Those who 
have tried all the fads and so-called cures 
in order to relieve their troubles will cer- 
tainly appreciate what I have here pre- 
sented for their study. With enlightenment 
comes the desire to set things right. 
So I have no appeal to make to the lazy : 
I shall leave them to their ills and their 
pills. And for those who appreciate the 
beauty of cleanliness, both external and 
internal, I shall write another book on 
that subject, including a prophecy for 
coming generations. Eternal vigilance 
is the price we must pay if we would en- 
joy the highest physical, mental and spir- 
itual expression of our personalities. 

Thanking the indulgent reader who has 
read my description of Intestinal Ills, I 
advise him to rewrite it in his own organ- 
ism, if not in printer's ink : the world will 
be better for it ! 

43 West 45TH St., N. Y. City. 



244 



NIAH '^y '^-' 



